Picture Healthcare As a Human Right:
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Healthcare Is a Human Right Campaign
The Vermont Workers' Center launched the grassroots Healthcare is a Human Right (HCHR) Campaign in 2008 to make Vermont the first state in the country with a universal healthcare system.
Before we launched the Campaign, we talked to thousands of Vermonters who shared heart-breaking stories of illness, bankruptcy, and even death as a result of the broken healthcare system. We realized that for too long, Vermonters have been suffering under a system which treats our healthcare as commodity and not a human right. We saw that for too long, crucial decisions about our healthcare system have been made by a handful of powerful insurance companies and their lobbyists.
In 2008, we were told that universal healthcare was politically impossible in Vermont, but after organizing in communities across the state to build a groundswell of grassroots power, we have proven that universal healthcare is politically possible--Vermonters are ready for a universal healthcare system!
As a result of our organizing in every county, Vermont is poised to enact the country's first universal healthcare system--but the struggle isn't over yet. Insurance companies and their lobbyists are pouring milions of dollars into our little state to keep us caught under their broken system.
We need all the help we can get to make sure that we continue on our historic path to universal healthcare--will you join us?
UPDATE: February 13, 2012: What is happening with healthcare reform in Vermont? Check it out here.
VIDEO: Vermont Can Lead the Way (8 min, 2010) Documenting the history of this grassroots campaign
VIDEO: A People's Struggle: Video Update (4 min, 2011)
PSA VIDEO: "Universality" check it out here
What We've Done: Campaign timeline and highlights
5 Lessons Article published in In These Times