February, 26 2019, 11:00pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Kari Jones, 510-207-4829, Chuck Idelson, 415-559-8991, press@nationalnursesunited.org, Abhi Rahman, 720-299-0654, arahman@fenton.com
Largest U.S. Nurses' Union Champions New Medicare for All House Bill
RNs are organizing an unprecedented, grassroots movement to back the new legislation
WASHINGTON
ational Nurses United (NNU) announced its strong support for the new Medicare for All Act of 2019, introduced today by Representative Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), with backing from more than 100 members of Congress.
"As the largest union of registered nurses in the country, we could not be more proud of Rep. Jayapal for leading the way on this legislation that will change and save our patients' lives. This bill is not only the most comprehensive Medicare for All act we have seen to date, but it is being introduced at a time when a majority of Americans are fed up with incremental tweaks to the current broken system and are demanding Medicare for All. It's the right bill, at the right moment--and now we are organizing an unprecedented grassroots movement to demand that our elected officials support this legislation," said NNU Executive Director Bonnie Castillo, RN.
"Today in America, 30 million people are uninsured. 40 million are underinsured. We have the most expensive health care system in the world and yet our outcomes are the worst of all industrialized countries. I and the more than 100 cosponsors of this bill refuse to allow this to continue. It's time to put people's health over profit," said Rep. Japayal, emphasizing that the bill "will cover everyone."
WHAT: Introduction of Medicare For All Act of 2019
WHERE: House Triangle
WHEN: Wednesday, February 27th 2019, 11:15AM ET
The event will stream livehere.
"Healthcare is a human right. We will need every single person in the country to help us, to stand with us, to organize and to fight for this," Jayapal continued. "Because the industry lobby is going to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into killing this bill, saying it costs too much, scaring you into thinking you're giving up something, pitting the healthy against the sick and the young against the old. It's time to ensure that healthcare is a right and not a privilege, guaranteed to every single person in our country. It is time for Medicare for All."
Medicare for All Act of 2019 highlights include:
- The most comprehensive list of services covered, of any bill to date--including primary care, hospital care, women's reproductive health services, dental, vision, mental health, substance abuse treatment, prescription drugs, long term service and supports, the cost of transportation for disabled and low-income patients, and more.
- Guaranteed, universal coverage for every resident of this country.
- Real choice; no narrow networks, and you can keep your doctor, hospital and other providers if you move or lose your job.
- No copays or deductibles for any part of the program.
- Long term care for the disabled and elderly, with prioritization of home and community-based services and supports.
- A two-year transition period. In the first year after enactment, everyone over 55 and under 19 would be fully covered by Medicare, and two years after enactment, all Americans would be covered.
- Drug pricing reforms to drastically reduce the outrageously high costs of prescription medications in the United States.
- A focus on improving health care in rural and underserved communities through providing a special projects fund devoted to the building and staffing of new health care facilities in rural and underserved areas.
A recent Reuters-Ipsos poll showed 70 percent of respondents support Medicare for All, with 85 percent support among Democrats and 52 percent of Republicans supporting. According to nurses, who have for decades led the grassroots movement for Medicare for All, the next step is to continue growing support among the American public and to lobby representatives for the new bill's passage.
In early February, National Nurses United sponsored Medicare for all "barnstorm" mass organizing meetings, across the United States, aimed at kickstarting action on Medicare for All in local communities. Over 150 events were held across the country, attended by 5,000 people--and resulting in 1,500 canvasses scheduled over the coming weeks. RNs say this surge of everyday people getting involved with knocking on doors and calling their legislators will continue growing the movement until the people's will becomes the political will to pass Medicare for All.
"Our patients are paying for our current, broken system with their life savings--and their actual lives," said NNU copresident Jean Ross, RN. "One third of all Go Fund Me campaigns are created to pay for medical expenses. It's time for an end to the unconscionable choices are patients are forced to make, between paying for rent, food or medical care. The mass surge of public support for Medicare for All we've seen recently says that people across the country want real reform, now, and together, we will get this bill across the finish line."
Supporting organizations: National Nurses United, Physicians for a National Health Program, Social Security Works, Center for Popular Democracy, Public Citizen, Labor Campaign for Single Payer, AIDS Healthcare Foundation, Amalgamated Transit Union, American Federation of Teachers, American Medical Students Association, American Postal Workers Union, Association of Flight Attendants, Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees, Business Initiative for Health Policy, Center for Popular Democracy Action, Coalition of Labor Union Women, Credo Action, Daily Kos, Debs-Jones-Douglass Institute, Democracy for America, Democratic Socialists of America, Demos, Faith in Healthcare, Health Care Now, Indivisible, International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, International Association of Machinists & Aerospace Workers, International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, Just Care USA, MoveOn, National Economic and Social Rights Initiative, National Health Care for the Homeless Council, National Union of Healthcare Workers, New York State Nurses Association, Other98, Our Revolution, Progressive Democrats of America, People Demanding Action, People's Action, People's Action Institute, Service Employees International Union, Ultraviolet Action, Unitarian Universalist Association, United Electrical Radio and Machine Workers, Women's March Inc, Working Hero Action.
National Nurses United, with close to 185,000 members in every state, is the largest union and professional association of registered nurses in US history.
(240) 235-2000LATEST NEWS
Missouri Coalition Delivers Signatures to Get Abortion Rights on November Ballot
"This milestone for the Missourians for Constitutional Freedom campaign means that voters are one step closer to being able to use the ballot measure process to secure their rights."
May 03, 2024
Missouri currently has one of the strictest abortion bans in the United States, but a coalition behind a potential ballot measure is hoping to change that—and on Friday, it made major progress toward expanding reproductive freedom in the state.
Ahead of a Sunday deadline, Missourians for Constitutional Freedom submitted 380,159 signatures to the Missouri Secretary of State's office, which must now certify them. The signatures were collected in just three months and are over double the number needed to get the proposed amendment on the November ballot.
"Today, we turned in boxes filled with hopes and dreams of bodily autonomy," declared Tori Schafer, an ACLU attorney and coalition spokesperson, in a statement. "Our message is simple and clear: We want to make decisions about our bodies free from political interference."
A so-called "trigger law" that took effect after the U.S. Supreme Court reversedRoe v. Wade two years ago prohibits abortion care in Missouri unless the health or life of the pregnant person is at risk. There are no exceptions for rape or incest, and doctors who violate the ban could face up to 15 years behind bars.
The proposed amendment would broadly safeguard reproductive freedom in the state, protecting not only abortion care before fetal viability but also birth control, respectful birthing conditions, and miscarriage, prenatal, and postpartum care.
"Hundreds of thousands of Missourians are now having conversations about abortion and reproductive freedom; some are sharing their own abortion stories for the very first time; and all are ready to do whatever it takes to win at the ballot box this year," said Mallory Schwarz, executive director of Abortion Action Missouri and another coalition spokesperson. "Together, we are going to end Missouri's abortion ban."
Dr. Iman Alsaden, chief medical officer for Planned Parenthood Great Plains and adviser to the coalition, called Friday "a monumental day for Missouri and for my patients."
"The success of this campaign sends a clear message: Missourians trust patients to make the healthcare decisions that are best for their health and well-being," Alsaden said. "Anti-abortion politicians take note: My patients' lives are not yours to control."
Missouri is one of several states—including Arizona, Florida, and Montana—where supporters of reproductive freedom are working to pass abortion rights ballot initiatives this cycle. As the divided Congress has failed to codify Roe since the Supreme Court's 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, ballot measures have been an increasingly popular strategy.
Kelly Hall, executive director of the Fairness Project, which has backed various abortion rights ballot initiatives across the country over the past few years, welcomed the successful signature collection campaign in Missouri on Friday.
"Missourians today are living under an extremely cruel abortion ban, enacted by politicians who are profoundly out of touch with their voters," Hall said. "Missourians deserve better—they should be able to make their own healthcare decisions without government interference."
"This milestone for the Missourians for Constitutional Freedom campaign means that voters are one step closer to being able to use the ballot measure process to secure their rights this November," she added, "and we are excited to be standing with them in that fight."
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"To claim these deaths are accidental is not only incredulous, it is insulting to the memory of professionals who lived their lives in service of truth and accuracy," said one expert.
May 03, 2024
As the international community marked World Press Freedom Day on Friday, journalists and advocates across the globe mourned and celebrated those killed in Israel's ongoing assault on the Gaza Strip.
The U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has publicly identified at least 97 media workers killed since Israel launched its retaliatory war on October 7: 92 Palestinian, three Lebanese, and two Israeli reporters.
"Since the Israel-Gaza war began, journalists have been paying the highest price—their lives—to defend our right to the truth. Each time a journalist dies or is injured, we lose a fragment of that truth," said CPJ program director Carlos MartĂnez de la Serna in a Friday statement. "Journalists are civilians who are protected by international humanitarian law in times of conflict. Those responsible for their deaths face dual trials: one under international law and another before history's unforgiving gaze."
Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF)—or Reporters Without Borders—puts the journalist death toll in Gaza above 100. Middle East Monitorreports at least 144 members of the press are among the 34,622 Palestinians that Israeli forces have killed in less than seven months in what the International Court of Justice has called a plausibly genocidal campaign.
RSF on Friday released its annual Press Freedom Index. In its section on the Middle East, the group states:
Palestine (157th), the most dangerous country for reporters, is paying a high price. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have so far killed more than 100 journalists in Gaza, including at least 22 in the course of their work. Since the start of the war, Israel (101st) has been trying to suppress the reporting coming out of the besieged enclave while disinformation infiltrates its own media ecosystem.
At the war's six-month mark in April, Jonathan Dagher, head of RSF's Middle East desk, declared that "this massacre must stop. Gaza's reporters must be protected, those who wish must be evacuated, and Gaza's gates must be opened to international media."
"The few reporters who have been able to leave bear witness to the same terrifying reality of journalists being attacked, injured, and killed," he continued, ripping the IDF for "silencing those who are driven by a duty to report the facts."
"RSF calls on the international community, its leaders, and its governments, to do everything to step up pressure on the Israeli authorities to end this disaster," Dagher added. "Palestinian journalism must be protected as a matter of urgency."
The Paris-based group nominated Palestinian journalists covering Gaza for an annual award from the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)—an honor they received during a ceremony on Thursday.
"Each year, the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano Prize pays tribute to the courage of journalists facing difficult and dangerous circumstances," said Audrey Azoulay, the U.N. organization's director-general. "Once again this year, the prize reminds us of the importance of collective action to ensure that journalists around the world can continue to carry out their essential work to inform and investigate."
Palestinian journalists covering Israel’s war on Gaza have been awarded UNESCO’s World Press Freedom prize. More than 100 journalists, mostly Palestinians, have been killed in the war. pic.twitter.com/uSfIKsqTyQ
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) May 3, 2024
Nasser Abu Baker, president of the Palestinian Journalists' Syndicate and vice-president of the International Federation of Journalists, accepted the prize on behalf of his colleagues in the besieged enclave.
"Journalists in Gaza have endured a sustained attack by the Israeli army of unprecedented ferocity—but have continued to do their jobs, as witnesses to the carnage around them," he said. "It is justified that they should be honored on World Press Freedom Day. What we have seen in Gaza is surely the most sustained and deadly attack on press freedom in history. This award shows that the world has not forgotten and salutes their sacrifice for information."
Mariam Abu Dagga, a 31-year-old photojournalist for the Independent Arabic displaced in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, toldCNN: "We are covering the war on Gaza because this is our journalistic duty. It is entrusted upon us... We challenged the Israeli occupation. We challenged the difficult circumstances and the reality of this war, a genocidal war."
"Whenever a journalist is targeted, we ask ourselves who among us will get their turn of being targeted tomorrow," said Abu Dagga, who also noted the emotional toll of tasks such as photographing children beneath the rubble.
“Palestinian journalists have seen what no journalist has.”
For #WorldPressFreedomDay, we spoke to Palestinian journalist Hani Aburezeq, who's been showing the world Israel’s war on Gaza. pic.twitter.com/YikPzX12a7
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) May 3, 2024
While Israel has repeatedly claimed—as it did to CNN on Friday—that "the IDF has never, and will never, deliberately target journalists," members of the press and others have cast doubt on such comments.
“For far too long Israel has been able to operate with impunity in the occupied Palestinian territory, and this has included occasionally killing reporters, like the Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, in 2022," Simon Adams, president of the Center for Victims of Torture, told the Inter Press Service.
Given the number of journalists killed in Gaza since October, he said, "to claim these deaths are accidental is not only incredulous, it is insulting to the memory of professionals who lived their lives in service of truth and accuracy."
Simon called for all journalist deaths in Gaza to be reported to the International Criminal Court and asserted that "World Press Freedom Day should be celebrated with a black armband this year."
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Schumer called for new elections in Israel in March, saying Netanyahu and other extremists in the government were "major obstacles" to peace.
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Weeks after supporters of Palestinian rights demanded that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer follow his sharp rebuke of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with "action" to change U.S. policy toward Israel, the New York Democrat's office confirmed Thursday that he is instead planning to invite the right-wing leader to speak before Congress.
"Unbelievable," said Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft executive vice president Trita Parsi, an outspoken critic of the Biden administration's support for Israel's mass killing of civilians in Gaza since October, in response to the news.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) first proposed inviting Netanyahu to give a congressional address in March, and told The Hill that he had sent a draft of the letter inviting the prime minister to Schumer to cosign. At the time, Schumer said he would "always welcome the opportunity for the prime minister of Israel to speak to Congress in a bipartisan way," but he has not signed on to the invitation yet.
"He intends to join the invitation, the timing is being worked out," a spokesperson for Schumer told The Hill on Thursday.
Schumer angered Netanyahu in March by saying on the Senate floor that he has "has lost his way" and is being pushed to "tolerate the civilian toll in Gaza" by far-right extremists in his Cabinet, putting Israel at risk of becoming a "pariah" state.
He said that along with Hamas, Netanyahu and his Cabinet are "major obstacles" to peace in the Middle East and called for new elections in Israel.
Palestinian rights supporters welcomed Schumer's rebuke but called on him to push President Joe Biden to cut off military funding for Israel, which has killed at least 34,622 Palestinians since October and has caused dozens of people to starve to death by blocking humanitarian aid.
Progressive advocate and former congressional candidate Lindsey Boylan said she was "deeply, irretrievably disappointed" in Schumer for planning to invite Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress.
"Netanyahu has stolen more from his own people than can ever be verbalized," said Boylan. "He is a criminal."
The news of the imminent bipartisan invitation comes as Israel is reportedly preparing to begin a full-scale ground assault on Rafah, where 1.2 million Palestinians have been displaced following the Israel Defense Forces' decimation of cities across Gaza, and as thousands of Americans have been arrested on college campuses in recent weeks for protesting U.S. support for the war.
Hundreds of people were arrested outside Schumer's home in Brooklyn last week for holding a Jewish-led Passover Seder protest in solidarity with Gaza.
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