Labor & Employment Law

Nearly 1,000 Say ?Thank You? to Lawmakers Who Backed Health Care

By Mike Hall

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka (bottom) and nearly 1,000 union members thanked lawmakers for passing health care and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (top) thanked activists for all their work in building support for the legislation.

Health care reform became the law of the land because enough congressional Democrats “had courage and stood with working families,” United Steelworkers (USW) President Leo W. Gerard told nearly 1,000 union activists at a Capitol Hill rally this afternoon. These lawmakers ”stood for what’s morally right and against the Big Insurance industry and their nearly $1 billion campaign” to kill the bill.

The USW organized the rally with the support for the AFL-CIO, Utility Workers (UWUA) and the SEIU to say “Thank you” to the lawmakers who voted for health care reform, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) turned the tables a bit when she told the crowd,

The thanks go to you for all your help that made this victory possible.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said that during the course of months-long battle to bring health insurance coverage to nearly 32 million uninsured Americans and end insurance company abuses, “there were no easy votes.”

The insurance industry spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to kill us, and to slander and defame the members of Congress who had the courage to do the right thing.

But our Democratic heroes had the courage to tell insurance companies, “No more.” No more refusing to cover our children. No more denying coverage for pre-existing conditions. No more cutting people off when they get sick. No more second-guessing our doctors, and no more telling people you can go ahead and die.

Lynda Hiller and her family lost their insurance after her husband, Howard, was laid off in November 2008.  But the bills for her breast cancer treatment didn’t stop for the Coplay, Pa., mother of two and Working America member. She told the crowd she and her family desperately need the relief health care reform will provide, including banning health insurers from denying coverage to people with pre-existing condition.

More than 3 million seniors, like Stella Johnson, a retired Washington, D.C., school teacher, fall into the Medicare prescription drug “donut hole,” the gap in coverage when seniors must pay full price for their needed medications?even though they continue to pay their Medicare premiums. Speaking at the rally, Johnson, an Alliance for Retired Americans member, said when her coverage stops, she is forced to choose between taking her medicine or falling behind on her bills.

The new health reform law will help me, my family, and my friends by phasing out this Medicare donut hole. It will also help people on Medicare get free yearly physicals and get important preventive screenings without any co-payments.

I want to thank the representatives who stood up for me and every senior in America when they supported the passage of the new health reform law. This really is a great thing.

Gerard challenged Republican lawmakers to follow their threats this fall to run against health care reform and call for its repeal.

Let’s tell them to go ahead and go home and run against closing the donut hole for seniors. Go ahead and run against letting parents keep their kids covered. Go ahead and run against stopping insurance companies from dropping your coverage when you get sick or denying coverage for pre-existing conditions.

Also pointing to the November congressional elections, Trumka said working families will offer more than their thanks to the lawmakers who fought for health care reform.

They’ve led us through the lies and distortions, the name-calling, and the Republican attempts to shut down our legislative process. We thank them for supporting us, and we want them to know it’s payback time.

You supported us, now it’s our turn. You were with us in January, and February, and March, and April, and we’ll be with you in November.

Following the rally, members of the USW’s Rapid Response grassroots action team hit the halls of Congress to lobby members on a range of issues, including in trade and manufacturing policy, Wall Street reform and green jobs and clean energy. Rapid Response members have been meeting in Washington, D.C., for their annual legislative conference.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on May 06, 2010 (boomark / email).