healthcare is a human right

We are inviting you to help us make history. Last year began with the Arab Spring and the Wisconsin Uprising and ended with the birth of the Occupy Wall Street/99% protests, which dramatically changed the political landscape in our country and the world. Vermont’s breakthrough for universal healthcare has inspired people across the country. Now, we believe Vermont can catalyze change nationwide by leading the country in a broad movement for human rights and sustainable communities.

Vermont Workers’ Center, Healthcare Is a Human Right Campaign
Testimony on H.559
February 7, 2012

Good afternoon. I am Peg Franzen, President of the Vermont Workers’ Center. I first want to thank you for this opportunity to testify about the implementation of Vermont’s pioneering health reform law. This is a very important process, and I’d like to thank you for moving this process along in a serious, considered and participatory way. I’d also like to share with you the ideas and suggestions our members have about some of the provisions in this particular bill, H.559.

On February 13, 2012 over 150 people with the Put People First Campaign turned out to 14 VT interactive television sites to speak at the state budget hearings for the Joint Legislative Appropriations Committees. People testified sharing their personal stories. Their message to legislators was that we're here together to do the hard work of transforming the way our state creates its budget to build a system that puts people first and meets all our human rights.

We knew that 2012 was going to be a confusing and frustrating year on the road to universal healthcare in Vermont. When Vermont passed its groundbreaking universal healthcare law in 2011, it included a long transition process, starting with the problematic step of setting up an insurance exchange, a marketplace required by the federal Affordable Care Act.

DATE: January 27, 2012

TO: Robin Lunge, Director of Health Reform

FROM: Vermont Workers’ Center - Healthcare Is a Human Right Campaign

CC: Anya Rader-Wallack, Dr. Karen Hein, Con Hogan, Albert Gobeille, Dr. Allan Ramsay, Georgia Maheras, Mark Larson, Sen. Claire Ayer, Rep. Michael Fisher,

SUBJECT: Statement on the Green Mountain Care financing and benefits debate

Green Mountain Care Board is heeding our demand for a transparent and participatory process to building our healthcare system. Now its our job to participate.   It’s crucial that we have a good turnout for this meeting! We know the opposition to quality healthcare for all is organizing and is mobilizing, but we know they’re not the majority.  We need to make sure our message of equity is heard loud and clear, and that the opposition doesn’t successfully promote a financing plan that hurts small businesses and is built on the backs of poor and working class people.