|
Dear
PCCFFAP Members
A lot of
angry,
over-the-top
rhetoric is
muddying our
discussion of
health care
reform. To help
clear things up,
here’s a brief
summary of
President
Obama’s plan,
including how it
will ameliorate
insurance
company abuse
and help working
Americans even
those who
currently have a
strong health
benefits plan.
- Health
care reform
will reduce
insurance
company
abuses.
- Insurance
companies
won’t be
able to
refuse to
pay a
claim or
give you
coverage
because of
“pre-existing”
conditions.
- Your
out-of-pocket
expenses
will be
capped. No
more going
broke
because of
a serious
illness or
injury.
- Insurance
companies
won’t be
allowed to
charge
women
higher
rates than
men or
drop you
if you get
sick.
- Insurance
companies
will have
to cover
your
children
until age
26 instead
of dumping
them at
19.
- Health
care reform
will hold
down rising costs.
- A public
health
insurance
option
will force
private
insurers
to compete
and will
lower
costs for
everyone.
- By
requiring
companies
to pay
their fair
share, we
will make
it more
difficult
for them
to dump
their
health
care costs
on
the
rest of
us.
- Health
reform means
affordable care
will be
there for
you, no
matter what.
If you lose
your job, or
your kid
loses his.
If you get
sick. When
you retire. Affordable
health care
will be
there for
you, no
matter what.
That means
you and your
family
can’t fall
through the
cracks and
won’t go
broke
because of
health care
bills.
For more
information
about how health
care reform can
help you and for
answers to many
of the common
questions about
President
Obama’s plan,
check out this new
web resource
from the White
House.
We are very
close to what
will be
substantive
efforts towards
reform,
but getting over
the finish line
will be a
battle. We are
up against giant
insurance
companies, a
Republican Party
that wants
President Obama
to fail and
irresponsible
corporate media
like Fox and
Rush Limbaugh.
The reality
is that health
care costs are
spiraling out of
control, and
everyone in
America deserves
quality and
affordable care.
Health care
reform simply
can’t wait. We
will all be
better off with
health-care
reform.
The Obama
plan will
improve the
quality of our
lives and our
health...
and it will be a
step in the
right direction
towards
Universal
Healthcare
for all of our
people.
There is a
downside...
Transnational
insurance
corporations
will still set
the rates and
call the
shots.
They will
continue
to find
loopholes,
profiteering
with the health
of our
citizens.
This reform
will be
unsustainable as
long as these
firms are
allowed to stand
between working
people and our
healthcare
providers.
In time, we must
form a direct
relationship
between
healthcare
providers and
working
Americans by
prohibiting
insurance
companies to put
profits ahead of
people. A
non-profit,
civic-minded,
paradigm of
human service
for the common
good must
eventually
prevail for us
to provide for
the health of
all of our
people.
The Obama plan
is a step in the
right
direction.
Tell your
legislators
to
support this
plan and
encourage them
to put Single
Payer back on
the table.
Tim Flanagan,
AFT Liaison to
the JWJ
Healthcare
committee |
JWJ Healthcare
Committee Meeting at
Machinists Hall
August 18 at 6pm. Find
out the differences
between single-payer,
public option, co-ops,
and the current
insurance profiteering. |
Frank McCourt:
Inspirational Writer,
AFT Member
|
Pulitzer
Prize-winning author and former
New York City teacher Frank
McCourt, 78, who died July 19,
was one of the world’s “most
inspirational writers and
teachers,” says AFT President
Randi Weingarten.
Frank McCourt saw
teaching, storytelling and
writing not only as a way out of
his unimaginable,
poverty-stricken childhood and
adolescence, but also as a way
to share his life’s lessons.
McCourt, an
AFT member, taught social
studies and English in the
city’s public schools from 1960
to 1987. He won the Pulitzer
Prize for his 1996 memoir,
Angela’s Ashes, that
detailed his impoverished
childhood in Limerick, Ireland.
His 2005 book, Teacher Man,
chronicles his teaching career
in New York City. Says
Weingarten:
Thousands
of students benefited from
his remarkable ability to
help them realize the
richness of their own lives,
no matter how difficult.
In 1997,
McCourt spoke at an AFT
conference. McCourt told the
educators he knew nothing about
teaching when he became a
teacher, except what he had
picked up from his teachers in
Ireland, all “trained by the
Marquis de Sade.”
I didn’t
know I was learning on the
job that first year and
later found out I had been
learning on the job for 27
years….Norman Mailer said
the only way you learn
something is by writing
about it. The only way I
learned anything was by
teaching about it.
