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Mass-Care

Steering Committee Maria Termini reports that the Boston Chapter has ramped up our support for universal health care: we're now an organizational member of Mass-Care, a coalition of Massachusetts organizations sharing a deep concern about the inequities of our health care system. Mass-Care supports a single payer health care system for Massachusetts that would provide health care for all residents.

At Mass-Care's monthly regional meeting in September, Termini writes, "I learned more about the crucial need to advocate for health care justice and about the critical work being done by energetic activists to get a bill for universal health care before the Massachusetts legislature. Mass-Care needs volunteers for various projects, especially fundraising. It also wants to hear from writer members who have stories about their experiences with the health care system and from anyone who can write lyrics for a song about health care. Mass-Care will send speakers to organizations to educate them about health care reform."

NWU members who'd like to be involved with this issue, especially those willing to attend monthly regional meetings, should email Maria Termini or call her at 617-928-1544.

The Conyers Bill

The National Writers Union, UAW Local 1981, endorses HR 676, the single payer health care legislation introduced by Congressman John Conyers (D-MI).

Health care should be a right, not a privilege. In the U.S. today, unions are being forced into confrontations with employers over the payment of insurance premiums. Hospitals are going bankrupt as charity cases increase. Meanwhile, the insurance companies haul in super-profits.

The health care crisis has left patients, suffering from terminal illness, in financial ruin and despair. The nation's inability to provide quality health care for preventive check-ups has increased the costs of health maintenance, forcing citizens with otherwise curable conditions to wait until they reach a point of no return to good health. Children's activities have been altered by their parents' fear of medical costs that cannot be paid, forcing children into a life of inactivity and obesity that ruins their health.

The health care crisis has affected the pursuit of happiness that is guaranteed in the U.S. constitution and thus, in this way, has taken away even more freedom than the pursuit of profits has granted. This is why the National Writers Union endorses HR 676 as a way to bring resolution to this nation's health care crisis.