March, 23 2012, 01:05pm EDT
The Affordable Care Act: An Appeal to the Repealers
WASHINGTON
Mary Kay Henry, President of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), representing more than 2.1 million working families dedicated to quality, affordable healthcare for all issued the follow statement today on the two-year anniversary of the passage of the Affordable Care Act.
"Today, millions of working families across America are saying 'thank you' for the Affordable Care Act as it continues to deliver on its vision of providing quality, affordable, secure healthcare to all, regardless of age, race, income, faith or profession. The law is the great equalizer - no one man or woman is more or less deserving than another. In the eyes of the Affordable Care Act, there is no 1% or 99%. There are only Americans who all deserve an equal chance to live longer, healthier lives.
"The Affordable Care Act is working. If you care about the future of this country, move on to a real challenge. Stop playing politics with the health of Americans and stop engaging in threats in the form of lawsuits, refusal of federal dollars and legislative foot dragging. That will not make America great; it will make us broke and sick.
"If you are running false ads against the Affordable Care Act, stop them. If you are undermining the foundation of Medicaid and Medicare and attempting to embarrass American taxpayers and veterans who depend upon on these essential services, take a moment and remember who built this country.
"While this week underscored that Republican extremists in Congress are happy to continuing stacking the deck against our struggling middle-class and aging parents and grandparents, I would appeal to leaders in our government who truly want America to recover from this recession to focus on what matters most: creating good jobs."
With 2 million members in Canada, the United States and Puerto Rico, SEIU is the fastest-growing union in the Americas. Focused on uniting workers in healthcare, public services and property services, SEIU members are winning better wages, healthcare and more secure jobs for our communities, while uniting their strength with their counterparts around the world to help ensure that workers--not just corporations and CEOs--benefit from today's global economy.
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While applauding the U.S. House of Representatives' bipartisan passage of a bill to ensure that "law enforcement and intelligence agencies can't do an end-run around the Constitution by buying information from data brokers" on Wednesday, privacy advocates highlighted that Congress is trying to extend and expand a long-abused government spying program.
The House voted 219-199 for Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act (FANFSA), which won support from 96 Democrats and 123 Republicans, including the lead sponsor, Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio). Named for the constitutional amendment that protects against unreasonable searches and seizures, H.R. 4639 would close what campaigners call the data broker loophole.
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Wednesday's vote followed the House sending the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act to the Senate. H.R. 7888 would reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which allows for warrantless spying on noncitizens abroad but also sweeps up Americans' data.
The House notably included an amendment forcing a wide range of individuals and businesses to cooperate with government spying operations but rejected an amendment that would have added a warrant requirement to the bill, which the Senate could vote on as soon as Thursday.
Noting those decisions on the FISA reauthorization legislation, Ruddock stressed that "today's vote is a victory but follows a recent loss and ongoing threat as that Section 702 bill moves to the Senate this week too."
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Jeramie Scott, senior counsel and director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center's Project on Surveillance Oversight, also praised the House's FANFSA passage on Wednesday.
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Kia Hamadanchy, senior policy counsel at ACLU, similarly said Wednesday that "the bipartisan passage of this bill is a flashing warning sign to the government that if it wants our data, it must get a warrant."
Hamadanchy added that "we hope this vote puts a fire under the Senate to protect their constituents and rein in the government's warrantless surveillance of Americans, once and for all."
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Since 2011, the U.N. Security Council has rejected the Palestinian Authority's request for full member status. On April 2, the Palestinian Observer Mission to the U.N. requested that the council once again take up consideration of its membership application. According to the first State Department cable, U.N. meetings since the beginning of April suggest that Algeria, China, Guyana, Mozambique, Russia, Slovenia, Sierra Leone, and Malta support granting Palestine full membership to the U.N. It also says that France, Japan, and Korea are undecided, while the United Kingdom will likely abstain from a vote.
Along with the United States, China, France, Russia, and the United Kingdom are permanent members of the UNSC, so they also have veto power.
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"After a year of preparation, we finally open the doors to our new research consortium, exposing the global network of reactionary forces that corrode our democracies, destroy our planet, and drive us closer to world war," the group added.
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