Welcome to National Mentoring Month....January babies
cuwin atlanta
facebook.com/cuwin
twitter.com/connectuniverse
clear.com
mentoring.org
---------------
National Mentoring Month
Georgia Mentoring
georgiamentoring.org
The Georgia Mentoring Partnership (GMP) is a coalition of public,
private, non-profit and faith-based communities. Its aim is to serve
as an advocate for the expansion of mentoring programs and a resource
for mentors and mentoring initiatives statewide. ...
Dear Single Payer Activists:
Thank you for attending the Healthcare-NOW! conference call this
month! 81 people were on the call.
We apologize for the background noise during the call. HCN staff is
currently researching methods to reduce this in the future so calls
can continue to be productive.
You can listen to the call here -
https://www.freeconference.com/RecordingDownload.aspx?R=8157451&C=8017&E=507742
There was a great amount of energy on the call.. Here are a few
important updates to remember:
1) Update on Reconciliation Process of House and Senate bills - The
conference committee will be skipped to expedite the process, which
means there will be less opportunity for Members and Activists to
weigh in on the legislation.
http://voices..washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/01/no_conference_committee_for_he.html?hpid=news-col-blog
2) Kucinich amendment: If you and your coalition are in support the
Kucinich amendment to allow states to move to single-payer systems by
waiving the ERISA barriers, now is the time to weigh in on this with
Reid, Pelosi, and the White House. See the post from Progressive
Democrats of America here: http://pdamerica.capwiz.com/pdamerica/callalert/index.tt?alertid=14518236
3) HCN Messaging Committee is having a conference call this Saturday
at 7pm. To be on the call, please email David Breitzmann at
d.brei...@gmail.com
4) Win-Win Campaign Webinar - Sat. Jan 23rd at 1 pm, we’re planning a
conference call/webinar to discuss the campaign in more detail. Mark
your calendars. More details coming soon!
Minutes from the HCN Conference Call
A) Update on Senate Bill and state single-payer amendments - Donna
Smith, California Nurses Association/National Nurses United
Katie Robbins - Introduction. Trying to get latest information about
the single-payer amendments in the Senate bill. A lot happening this
month and lucky to have Donna Smith from CNA and now National Nurses
United. She’ll go over the single-payer bills.
Donna Smith - I’ll update you the best I can, and this information is
from Sen. Sanders’ staff. What survived in the Senate, regarding
state single-payer, was a waiver for state innovation. It does not
grant waivers specifically for single-payer, but allows states to
apply to the Dir. of Health and Human Services for an ERISA waiver.
But one problem was a date restriction--no ability to apply until
2017. I have seen state groups circulating a call on their members to
move that date up, much earlier than 2017. That’s what I know about
the process in the Senate.
There is still work on the House site, we’re still seeking to get the
Kucinich amendment back in during the Conference Committee.
The language in the Senate bill is not as strong as we would like it.
It’s not as strong as Sen. Sanders offered in Committee, but in the
right direction to allow states to pass single-payer. We’ll know more
as we get into this week as members come back to Washington.
Miriam Thompson - Who’s setting criteria that states will have to
meet?
Donna - It’ll have to follow the Fed bill’s requirements, but we don’t
know them yet.
Katie - Who is a part of the Conf. Committee?
Donna - Most likely Chairs of the Committees of jurisdiction over the
bill. Baucus, Dodd, Reid. On House, Mill, Rangle, Waxman, Pelosi.
Maybe one or two more.
Katie - Any sense on timing of vote?
Donna - Nothing new. There’s a wish to move it quickly by Obama.
Votes likely during January.
David Brietzman - About Section 1332. Some are worried that the
language of the amendment would stop a purely state single-payer
system.
Donna Smith - I don’t think we know all the interpretations of that
yet.
Paula Friedman - What’s the status on the Constitutionality of
individual mandate?
Donna Smith - Some of our arguments for single-payer have been spewed
by Republicans. I’ve heard more discussions that if this reform bill
passes and enough people are disgruntled, and more Republicans are
voted into Congress, there might be a movement to repeal the bill
altogether.
Katie Robbins - We’ll keep everyone up to date as we get in more
information from Kucinich’s and Sanders’ staff this week.
B) Jerry Policoff, Health Care for All PA on the anti-trust issues
with the health bill
Up next is Jerry Pollicoff of Health Care for All - PA to talk about
anti-trust issues in the current bill.
Jerry Pollicoff - It’s a little complicated. Basically, insurance has
an exemption from Fed. anti-trust law (only other MLB), and the House
bill took the exemption away from them. The Sen. Finance Committee
left it in, and it was taken out. It appeared to be supported by
Obama, and it looked like it would go forward. But it was taken out
by Sen Reid, because Sen. Ben Nelson (worked for insurance industry
and trade groups) and since he’d be the 60th vote, they took it out.
As of now the exemption is in the House bill and not the Senate.
Up to 1994 it was assumed that the states had jurisdiction over
insurance in general.
Find Jerry’s article here: http://www.opednews.com/ articles/Health-
Insurance- Monopolie-by-Jerry-Policoff- 091228-669.html
C) Win-Win campaign - Tom Knoche
Katie - Next is Tom Knoche on the Win-Win Campaign.
Tom Knoche - The Win-Win campaign targets state and local governments,
as so government employers generally have the most to gain. But it
also applies to other organizations.
We think this is important this year because the states are already
cutting social services because of the bad economy. Also health
benefits are taking up more and more of local budgets (about 12-24
percent). The reform legislation does not address this problem at
all. It leaves state and local governments in the same position.
We see the ww campaign as a way to reach new people about single-
payer.
We have a page on the site with an organizing guide.
The most challenging aspect is wading through government budgets. And
doing the calculation. We’re in the position to help with that. With
just a little digging you can get
Sat. Jan 23rd at 1 pm, we’re planning a conference call/webinar to
discuss the campaign in more detail.
Contact Tom at knoch...@aol.com if you’re interested in joining the
conference call on Jan. 23rd at 1pm.
We’re somewhere around 60 or 70 local governments that have signed on
to single-payer.
Jerry Pollicoff - We have a new open records act in PA. We have every
municipality in the state calculated. $2.3 billion in savings for PA
on the single-payer bill. At www.HealthCare4AllPA.org.