Vermont Workers' Center Fighting for Workers' Rights!

MONTPELIER – Over a hundred Vermont union nurses and other healthcare professionals held a press conference calling on Vermont to lead the way in establishing healthcare as a basic public good for all Vermonters at the Statehouse today. The event is part of a growing grassroots campaign called the Healthcare Is A Human Right Campaign, which is coordinated by the Vermont Workers’ Center. There was a live call from Haiti reporting on Vermonters disaster relief efforts as part of the press conference in addition to talking about healthcare in Vermont.

**NOTE: INCLUDING VT NURSES CALLING IN TO REPORT FROM HAITI**

WHAT: Press Conference: Live Report from Nurses Haiti Relief Effort and Vermont nurses and health professionals stand up on for Healthcare Is A Human Right.

WHEN: 12noon, Friday, January 29th

WHERE: Cedar Creek Room, Statehouse, Montpelier

Press Conference: Vermont nurses and health professionals stand up on for Healthcare Is A Human Right.
12noon, Friday, January 29th, Statehouse Montpelier

A call for health reform
Statehouse crowd details system's faults, horrors, urges change.
by Dan Barlow
http://www.timesargus.com/article/20100113/NEWS/100119988

MONTPELIER – Hundreds of Vermonters filled the Statehouse Tuesday for a public forum on health care reform, with a vast majority urging lawmakers to adopt a single-payer system.

6 - 9PM, Tuesday, January 12th, Statehouse, Montpelier
The Vermont Senate Health & Welfare Committee and House Committee on Healthcare will be holding joint hearings on S.88 and H.100 (see summary here: http://www.workerscenter.org/node/168). Please join us and bring everyone you can. Let us know if you can come, if you can testify, or if you want a ride or can give a ride. Contact us at (802)861-4892 or kate[at]workerscenter.org .

http://www.vpr.net/news_detail/86826/ [listen online]

(Host) Several hundred people went to the Statehouse today to lobby for a single payer health care system.

Legislative leaders promised they would explore the single payer approach, but they didn't commit to having a vote on the issue this year.

VPR's Bob Kinzel reports.

(Kinzel) The rally was organized by the Vermont Workers Center and it was the culmination of a series of public hearings that the Center held throughout the state over the past few months.

4000+ Postcards Delivered to Statehouse to Kickoff Push For Vermont To Make Healthcare A Public Good

"We urge you to stand up and take the lead!"

MONTPELIER - More than two hundred Vermonters from the Vermont Worker's Center "Healthcare Is A Human Right Campaign (HCHR)" filled the Cedar Creek room at the Statehouse today, coming from all over the state, to deliver thousands of postcards to the leadership of the State Legislature and to take action on the two single-payer healthcare bills, S.88 and H.100, and mend the broken healthcare system this year.

"We came here today because we seek to change what is politically possible in the healthcare reform process," said Susan Lucas, RN president of the nurses union at Copley Hospital. "We believe that healthcare is not a commodity but a public good shared by all. The time is now to make healthcare a basic fundamental right for every single person"

MORRISVILLE, VT – More than fifty Lamoille County residents braved frigid temperatures to participate in a People’s Forum on Healthcare with Vermont Speaker of the House Rep. Shap Smith (D-Morrisville), Rep. Floyd Nease (D-Johnson) and State Senator Susan Bartlett (D-Lamoille County). This forum was the ninth of its kind scheduled in recent weeks by the Healthcare Is A Human Right Campaign (HCHR), a statewide grassroots organizing effort coordinated by the Vermont Workers’ Center (VWC) which aims to change what is politically possible in health reform in Vermont.

http://www.timesargus.com/article/RH/20091214/NEWS03/912140360

Vt. health reform tops Jan. agenda

By DANIEL BARLOW Vermont Press Bureau - Published: December 14, 2009

MONTPELIER – Vermont lawmakers will begin a new year of health care reform discussions with a massive public hearing at the Statehouse in early January.

When: 3-5pm, Sunday, Jan 10th

Hhere: Bixby Memorial Library, 258 Main St., Vergennes

What: This public event with Addison County state legislators including the House Committee on Healthcare Rep. Steve Maier will explore the how Vermont can establish healthcare as a basic human right and win single-payer healthcare in 2010. It is being organized by the Addison County Organizing Committee of the Healthcare Is a Human Right Campaign, a project of the Vermont Workers' Center that seeks to change what is politically possible in healthcare reform efforts through grassroots organizing.