Catamount Tavern News Service -This summer, volunteers and staff from the Vermont Workers' Center have been asking working Vermonters a simple question — "Do you believe we have a human right to healthcare?"
That question is part of a survey being conducted as the first phase of the Workers' Center's Healthcare Is a Human Right campaign. This campaign aims to change what is "politically possible" in the healthcare debate through grassroots organizing and expanding public understanding of the human rights framework.
Catamount Tavern News Service, Burlington, VT - This summer, volunteers and staff from the Vermont Workers' Center have been asking working Vermonters a simple question — "Do you believe we have a human right to healthcare?"
That question is part of a survey being conducted as the first phase of the Workers' Center's Healthcare Is a Human Right campaign. This campaign aims to change what is "politically possible" in the healthcare debate through grassroots organizing and expanding public understanding of the human rights framework. "Sixty years ago, in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the nations of the world — including the U.S. — declared that everyone has a basic human right to medical care and security in the event of sickness or disability," said Dawn Stanger, president of the Workers'Center. "Sadly, that right is not respected in the U.S., the wealthiest country in the world."

So far, the Center has surveyed over four hundred Vermonters, with a goal of reaching well over a thousand this fall. Some of the survey results have been eye-openers. Approximately two-thirds of respondents had refrained from getting health care at some point because they felt they were unable to afford it. A majority have stayed in a job only because of health insurance benefits. Almost one in five have experienced discrimination in trying to access healthcare, and more than one in ten respondents have stayed in an abusive relationship in order not to lose health benefits.

Surveys are being collected door-to-door, in workplaces, at community events and house parties hosted by volunteers. "The effort is really to try to speak to people who haven't been involved in politics before," said Colin Robinson of the Vermont Livable Wage Campaign, which is joining the Workers' Center in the campaign.

The next stage of the campaign will feature Human Rights Hearings in locations around the state in the fall, where community leaders will gather to hear testimony from those most affected by the healthcare crisis: working Vermonters, the unemployed, retirees, the un- and under-insured. The Workers' Center expects to hold hearings in Brattleboro, Burlington, Barre and the Northeast Kingdom in the coming months, expanding to more locations as the campaign continues.

"The start of organizing for the Healthcare is a Human Right campaign has been exciting and inspiring this summer," says Erik Kojola of Burlington, one of the intern organizers and active participants on the campaign."Folks have been extremely supportive and I have gotten a sense that people are ready for change in the healthcare system."

"The campaign has been extremely rewarding to work with; it shows that the vast majority of Vermonters are in agreement about the importance of a universal health care system and the necessity of changing our current system," says Katt Tolman, another intern organizer on the campaign, and is of Albany, Vermont.

For more information about the campaign, to volunteer or take the survey, contact VWC Healthcare Organizer Erika Simard at 861-2877 (Burlington) or 866-229-0009 (toll-free), or visit workerscenter.org/healthcare

James Haslam
Director
Vermont Workers' Center
294 North Winooski Avenue
Burlington, VT 05401
james (at) workerscenter.org
www.workerscenter.org
802-272-0882
--

HEALTHCARE IS A HUMAN RIGHT!
The VWC is committed to building a movement to change what's politically
possible for healthcare in VT. Find out how you can help, email
healthcare (at) workerscenter.org or see www.workerscenter.org/healthcare

"Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most
shocking and inhumane." Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

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Vermont Liberty Union Party Endorses the Workers’ Center ‘Healthcare Is A Human Right’ Campaign

Staff Writer

Catamount Tavern News Service, Norwich, VT- On September 7, 2008, the socialist Liberty Union Party unanimously passed a resolution stating their support for the ‘Healthcare is a Human Right’ campaign as being organized by the Vermont Workers’ Center and allied labor organizations. The Liberty Union is one of the four recognized “major parties” in the Green Mountain state and is running a full slate of candidates in the general election.

The Healthcare is a Human Right campaign seeks to build a grassroots movement towards the establishment of a universal, single-payer healthcare system at the state level. To date the Vermont Workers’ Center, located in the Old North End of Burlington, has surveyed over 600 Vermonters regarding their current healthcare, or lack thereof. In addition, the organization will hold hearings on the issue across the state beginning early fall. In December their findings will be presented to the public at a healthcare conference to be held in Burlington. Workers’ Center organizers are already anticipating a massive rally for healthcare at the State House in Montpelier on May 1st, 2009. The Center is also calling on all Vermont workers (union & non-union) to “call in sick” on the day of the anticipated rally.

The full text of the Liberty Union resolution on healthcare is as follows:

“The Liberty Union Party supports the ‘Healthcare is a Human Right’ campaign of the Vermont Workers’ Center and Further:

“We require that government ought to move in the direction of assuring that the wealth and resources of the world will be used to provide a materially secure life including socialized medicine for all the people of this planet, simultaneously preserving the planet and its resources for future generations.”

-------------------------------------------
*To read the Vermont Liberty Union Party platform, and to learn more about the organization take a look at: www.libertyunionparty.org

*To learn more about the Healthcare is a Human Right campaign or to get involved call the Vermont Workers’ Center at; (802) 861-2877, look on the web at: www.workerscenter.org, or stop by 284 N. Winooski, Burlington.

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Catamount Tavern News Service, September 14th, 2008 -At their annual convention in Colchester, the State AFL-CIO unanimously passed a resolution reaffirming their support for a state based single payer healthcare system and went on to give their backing to the Vermont Workers’ Center “Healthcare Is a Human Right” campaign. The campaign, among other things, has been building a grassroots organization across Vermont and has called for a statewide “Call In Sick Day” to coincide with a planned demonstration in the capital on May fist, 2009.

Catamount Tavern News Service, Brattleboro, VT – It is estimated that 11% of Vermont’s population (600,000+) is without health insurance, and many tens of thousands more who are insured are struggling to finance skyrocketing premiums, and co-pays. On the evening of September 25th the Vermont Workers’ Center held its first of a series of public hearings on the issue of healthcare at the St. Michael’s Episcopal Church in Brattleboro (pop. 13,000). And based on the testimony of many citizens, Brattleboro wants healthcare for all.

The Workers’ Center, itself a coalition of labor unions and community organizations representing over 25,000 working Vermonters, is seeking to engage the public in the healthcare debate. Besides the public hearing in Brattleboro, others are being planned for the Northeast Kingdom, Barre, Rutland, & Burlington. The Workers’ Center openly advocates on behalf of common Vermonters, who they say have a basic human right to healthcare. And since last May 1st 2007, volunteers and allies of the Center have been on the streets of most the larger towns and on many job sites asking folk to fill out a survey about their experience with healthcare. They are on pace to have over 1500 done by December, and are planning a Healthcare is a Human Right convention at UVM in Burlington on December 13th where their findings will be unveiled.

The Brattleboro hearing, co-sponsored by Vermont the Citizens Campaign For Health organization & the Child Labor Education and Action group, had more than 50 local people in attendance. Those assembled gave testimony about their experiences with healthcare to a listening panel composed of Bonnie Chase, RN, Nurses Union President at the Brattleboro Retreat, Kathleen Clark, RN, Vice President of the Brattleboro Federation of Nurses at the Brattleboro Memorial Hospital, Daniel Herlocker, RN, also a union member at the Brattleboro Memorial Hospital, the Reverend Lise Sparrow, minister at the Guilford Community Church, Rosa Palmeri of Child Labor Education & Action, and Dianne Champion Brattleboro District Director of the Vermont Department of Health.

One of the first Vermonters to speak was Nancy Hodecker. She told the panel that her husband had to have his tongue cut out, and soon after died, because he did not have health insurance. He first noticed a small sore on his tongue. But since he did not have health insurance and because money was tight, he resisted going to a doctor for four months. It turned out that he had developed class four cancer.

Dwayne Young, a local logger, testified that it is ironic how he has one of the most dangerous jobs around, but since he is insured while on the job, he doesn’t worry about it. What scares him is the thought of something happening out on the streets, out of the woods –where, until recently, he was not insured. Young explained that he recently signed up for Catamount Health.

Besides Nancy and Dwayne, many Vermonters talked about the problems poor & working people face with the current healthcare system, about experiencing discrimination for having Medicaid/Medicare, about undue burdens of paperwork and bureaucracy, about being hard working people and still not being able to afford medical treatment.

The final person to present testimony was Leah Swanson. Leah, a Brattleboro High School senior, read a moving letter to the panel from a local woman who wished to remain anonymous. The letter recalled in chilling detail how she was compelled to stay in a relationship with a man who beat her so that her 6 year old daughter could continue having life saving treatments for her cancer. Although the abusive husband was also the little girl’s father, he told his wife that if she left he would cancel his family healthcare plan; this would be akin to a death sentence for the child. –The battered mother, in the shadow of 7 recurrences of the child’s cancer, stayed in this nightmarish relationship for 22 years.

“The time has come to provide some relief for victims of domestic violence. If that one hurdle of the health insurance had not been placed in my way, I not only could have gotten my child through her cancer treatments, but she would not have been subject to all those added years of having to witness domestic violence,” Leah read.
The testimony concluded with, “Somehow, someway, we must gather enough support to provide health coverage for everyone so that stories like mine never happen again. You have the capability to do something about this. Please don’t turn away.”
The overall message of the evening was that Vermont has many good reasons, both moral and economic, to establish a socialized universal single-payer healthcare system whereby every Vermonter can get the medical treatment they need.
The hearing was brought to a close by James Haslam, Director of the Vermont Workers’ Center. Mr. Haslam called healthcare a “human right” and declared that the Workers’ Center is seeking to change the political discourse across the Green Mountains whereby what is right becomes what is possible –not the other way around; i.e. healthcare for all.
***
Other well attended healthcare hearings have been held by the Workers’ Center in Burlington (October 23rd), St Albans (November 13th), and Lyndon (November 18th). The overwhelming public opinion at all of these events has been that Vermont needs to implement a universal single-payer healthcare system whereby all Vermonters have coverage. Additional hearing will be organized for Barre, Rutland, and other parts of the state in the weeks and months to come. There will also be a Healthcare is a Human Right conference in Burlington at the UVM Davis Center on December 13th. All are welcome.
And finally, the Vermont Workers’ Center is planning, what they hope will be, a massive demonstration in the Capital, Montpelier, on May 1st, 2009 in support of single-payer healthcare. In collusion with the demonstration the Center is calling on all working Vermonters, both union and nonunion, to “Call In Sick” on that day, and for small independent businesses to voluntarily close down. To date this campaign has been endorsed by the Vermont AFL-CIO and the socialist Vermont Liberty Union Party. It is expected that other unions, community organizations, and political parties will follow suit in the coming months.
*For more information on the Healthcare is a Human Right Campaign & the Vermont Workers’ Center look them up on the web at: www.vermontworkerscenter.org