SinglePayerCentral: Montana Teachers' Union President Speaks Out for Single Payer

Montana Teachers' Union President Speaks Out for Single Payer

Correction: The news release of June 8, 2009, should have identified Tom
Szymanski as Organizer and Business Representative for IBEW Local 725 in
Terre Haute, Indiana. The Business Manager of the Local is R. Todd
Thacker. We apologize to both.

Montana Teachers' Union President Speaks Out for Single Payer

Great Falls Tribune
June 6, 2009

http://www.greatfallstribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090606/NEWS01/906060309&template=printart

Protesters want Baucus to consider single-payer system

By JOHN S. ADAMS Tribune Capitol Bureau
HELENA—Undeterred by Sen. Max Baucus' steadfast refusal to inject
single-payer into the congressional debate on health care reform, more
than 100 proponents of a "Medicare-for-all" form of nationalized health
insurance rallied for their cause on Friday.

Protesters in Helena, Great Falls, Missoula, Bozeman and Butte gathered at
Baucus' local field offices and demanded that Montana's senior senator,
and chairman of the powerful Senate Finance Committee, put single-payer
back on the table.

Eric Feaver, president of the state's largest labor union, MEA-MFT,
addressed the crowd at the amphitheater at the Great Northern Town Center
and said he doesn't want to "trash" Baucus, but that Baucus is on the
wrong path by ignoring single-payer.

"I think he has a very difficult job and he has 100 senators to work with
that are not of one mind," Feaver said. "But I am here to remind Sen.
Baucus that MEA-MFT does have 18,000 members who live and work everywhere
in this state and they all vote. And they have supported single-payer for
many years."

Though Baucus has been frigid to the idea of single-payer, he has said
he'd consider supporting a public option in which the federal government
would create an insurance plan that would compete with private insurance
plans. However, Baucus also has floated the idea of taxing
employer-provided health care benefits, a proposal MEA-MFT adamantly
opposes, Feaver said.

"The working men and women of this state support health care reform, and
they want the most comprehensive health care reform possible," Feaver
said.

Kim Abbott, lead organizer for the Montana Human Rights Network's Right to
Healthcare program, said affordable health care is not a privilege, but a
human right.

"There is nothing more infuriating, or frustrating or sickening than
knowing the answer but not having the political will to do the right
thing," Abbott said. "We all know the answer. What's the answer?"
"Single payer!" the crowd responded.

Dr. Carol Paris, a Maryland psychiatrist who was twice arrested last month
for protesting single-payer's exclusion from two Senate Finance Committee
hearings, also appeared at Friday's rally.

Paris, who was introduced as a "hero" of the single-payer movement for her
acts of civil disobedience, said single-payer advocates need to "keep the
heat on Sen. Baucus."

"The next 60 days truly are critical," Paris said. "We need to keep the
momentum going here and in Washington."

Paris said single-payer advocates have three demands of Baucus.
· That he and Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., hold Senate hearings on the
merits of single-payer health care.
· That Baucus order the Congressional Budget Office to study the costs of
implementing the Senate and House versions of single payer bills that have
already been introduced.
· That Baucus arrange a meeting between President Barack Obama and
single-payer experts.

After the rally protesters walked to Baucus' office around the corner. A
Baucus staffer handed protesters a sheet of paper with Baucus' position on
single payer.

"For more than a year Sen. Baucus has been laying the ground work to enact
comprehensive, meaningful health care reform," the letter said in part. It
went on to say that Baucus and single-payer advocates "share the same
goal."

"Both Senator Baucus and single payer advocates believe that every
Montanan should have quality, affordable health care," the letter stated.

The two sides remain far from agreement on how to achieve that goal. #30#

Distributed by:
All Unions Committee For Single Payer Health Care--HR 676
c/o Nurses Professional Organization (NPO)
1169 Eastern Parkway, Suite 2218
Louisville, KY 40217
(502) 636 1551
Email: nursenpo@aol.com
http://unionsforsinglepayerHR676.org
06/08/09