Making America Happen

AFSCME’s fight for health care reform generated hundreds of thousands of phone calls, letters and e-mails to Congress. As a founding member of Health Care for America Now! (HCAN), we provided valuable resources...

AFSCME’s fight for health care reform generated hundreds of thousands of phone calls, letters and e-mails to Congress. As a founding member of Health Care for America Now! (HCAN), we provided valuable resources, including an aggressive multi-million dollar tele-vision, online and print advertising campaign. Affiliates across the country held events, petitioned and lobbied members of Congress. Here’s a look at our efforts on the frontlines.

Storming the Capitol

(Photo credit: Luis Gómez)

 Two-thousand AFSCME members and thousands of other union members and community activists gathered near the U.S. Capitol last June for a National Health Care Reform Rally and Lobby Day.

Taking the Fight on the Road

(Photo credit: Tom Strickland)

Last summer, AFSCME’s “Highway to Health Care Reform” mobile advocacy center crisscrossed the country urging lawmakers to support reform. The bus stopped at 19 cities, where AFSCME activists signed-up supporters who volunteered to call their representatives to vote for quality, affordable health care for all.

Winning Support

(Photo credit: Dan Limke)

Going door-to-door in nine key states last fall, dozens of nurses and doctors represented by AFSCME and its affiliates helped build a critical mass of public support for health care reform. Dubbed “House Calls for Health Care,” the event generated increased awareness of the issue.

It’s A Crime

Hundreds of AFSCME activists joined thousands of demonstrators in the nation’s capital last March for a “mass citizens’ arrest”-of health insurance executives who were planning to defeat health care reform legislation. AFSCME activists from Maryland, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania joined others from Washington, DC — some carrying yellow crime scene tape — to protest in front of a downtown hotel.