Report on Health Care Lobby Day in Des Moines
by Caroline Vernon
contributions by Karen Metcalf On February 7th, many health care advocates from across the state came together in association with Democracy For America, Democracy For Iowa and Iowa For Health Care for their first joint Health Care Lobby Day.
Among
those in attendance from the Quad Cities were none other than yours
truly, Caroline Vernon, Alta Price, Karen Metcalf, and Bev Strayhall.
Although we are each connected to the larger groups mentioned above, we
are also active members of Progressive Action for the Common Good Health Care Forum. Like Iowa For Health Care, our main goal is to promote quality, affordable health care for all.
Although
we did not address the larger goal of obtaining good coverage for
everyone, the purpose of our visit to the Statehouse was to engage our
legislators on three very important pieces of legislation:
Increase in the cigarette tax:
Research
shows that increasing the tax by $1/pack would stop 4700 young people
in Iowa from starting. This translates into better health and
substantial savings in health care costs from tobacco-related
illnesses.
We found broad bi-partisan support for this
proposal, particularly if the revenue generated by the tax is allocated
specifically to health care. While the Senate last year approved a
cigarette tax hike, the effort has been blocked in the House because
House Speaker Christopher Rants, (R) – Sioux City, says he won't allow
debate.
sponsored a political organization, Iowa Leadership Council, that
received more than $60,000 from tobacco companies. The “Rants For
Statehouse Committee” also received over $4,000
from big tobacco and yet Rants insists these generous contributions
have nothing to do with the fact that he refuses to allow this proposal
to come to the floor for debate! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the
“culture of corruption” has come to Iowa! Evidently, Rants really
expects folks to believe this nonsense!
During our early morning press conference, Sara Swisher of Iowa For Healthcare declared, “Speaker
Rants needs to answer to the people who provide health care and he
needs to answer to Iowans. He should kick the habit and kick it now
instead of taking big bucks from tobacco.” Sara was joined by the group mascot, Mr. Buttman
ACTION:
Click here to download your own “Tobacco Buck For Rants,” make
single-sided copies on lime green paper, cut them apart and distribute
them at every legislative forum, townhall meeting and community event
you attend!
Over a dozen Republican legislators have also
encouraged Rants to allow debate on this issue, to no avail. It was
stressed that Sioux City residents would hold the most weight with
Rants, so if you are a SC resident or if you have friends or family who
are, please encourage them to contact House Speaker Chris Rants, urging
him to “do the right thing” by allowing debate on this very important
issue:
E-mail: Christopher.Rants@legis.state.ia.us
Home Address: 2740 South Glass
Street, Sioux City, IA, 51106
Home Telephone: 712-274-8874
According
to Iowa For Healthcare, polls show that at least 70% of Iowans support
a $1 increase of the tax. Governor Vilsack has proposed boosting the
tax by 80 cents per pack.
Fair Share For Health Care Legislation:
Maryland
recently passed a similar bill, by the same name, which passed over the
veto of Governor Ehrlich. This legislation has been introduced to the
Iowa legislature by Senator Joe Bolkcom and others in a bi-partisan
effort to hold large corporations accountable to their employees and
the communities in which they operate. It
forces the very largest employers (about 5 companies in Iowa) to
allocate a fixed percentage of their revenue for employee health care
costs, either by providing them with health care coverage directly, or
by paying directly to the State Medicaid budget, since many of these
employees make so little that they, or their children, qualify for
Medicaid.
According to an Iowa Department of Human Services
2004 report, the two largest employers in Iowa, HyVee and Walmart, each
have hundreds of employees who meet this low-income criteria. HyVee,
the largest employer, had 361 employees on Medicaid, while Walmart, the
2nd largest employer in the state, had over 800 employees on Medicaid.
As you know, Medicaid funding has been threatend by huge budget cuts on
the federal level which will affect the states ability to fund this
program so it is imperative that we mandate large profitable
corporations to pay their fair share for health care!
Whistle-Blower Protection For Health Care Workers:
Many
nurses and other health care workers were in attendance advocating for
this key piece of legislation to insure that all health care workers
are comfortable reporting unsafe practices without fear of being fired
or punished in some way by their employer. Various personal accounts of
such incidents were shared with legislators, citing examples of being
ostracized or fired for speaking out. There seemed to be broad support
for this legislation. Our hope is that this will pass this legislative
session. ACTION: Please contact your legislators and urge them to support this key protection for our invaluable health care workers.
Quality Affordable Health Care for All – by 2010:
PACG
Health Care forum Leader, Karen Metcalf, reflected on the progress made
that day, “It was a very productive day for those of us who went, not
so much because we were able to change legislators' minds, but because
we learned a lot about the political process and the exercise of
political power in the state. Although we did not specifically deal
with the macro goal of getting coverage for everyone, each of the three
pieces of legislation, in it's own way, does address a micro issue and,
if passed, would certainly be a step forward, rather than backward, as
so much legislation seems to be these days.”
Many grassroots organizations across the state are actively advocating for quality, affordable healthcare for all. The prestigious Institute of Medicine (IOM) called for the U.S. to implement
universal health care by 2010. According to the January 14, 2004 report, 43,000,000 Americans are uninsured (a conservative estimate), and
lack of health insurance causes 18,000 unnecessary deaths each year in the U.S.
Eighty percent of the uninsured are members of working families; while a quarter
of U.S. workers are not offered health insurance at all, and few Americans can
afford to buy the expensive individual policies.
It
is important that each of us continue to do whatever we can to address
this issue of healthcare for all. Because we believe health care is a right, not a privilege, the PACG Health Care forum has
championed the “Lend A Hand For Health Care” initiative, collecting
18,000 handprints to represent those people who die every year. We have
already acquired handprints from Governor Tom Vilsack, Lt. Governor
Sally Pederson, US Congressman Leonard Boswell, various state
legislators, and our very own Chariman Howard Dean. Outreach to faith
groups and other community organizations is under way in an effort to
expedite and complete this project by year's end. If you would
like more information on how you can assist in this effort contact
Karen Metcalf at karencadfael@aol.com or go to our website, www.qcprogressiveaction.org.
Once we meet our goal of 18,000 handprints, our hope is to take them to the statehouses in Des Moines and Springfield and then to
Washington DC to display them as close as possible to the Capitol Building! Can you manage
to get a visual on that?!
I would like to thank everyone at Democracy For America, Democracy For Iowa, and Iowa For Health Care
for sponsoring a great lobby day in Des Moines! Special thanks for all
the hard work of Kirsten Running, Chris Bonfig, Sally Simpson and all
the other dedicated staff at Iowa For Healthcare for helping to make this a first class event. And to Sara Swisher, kudos for her grace in leadership!
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