Push the Single-Payer Bill
As our health care crisis only deepens, as more and more of our money goes to rapacious insurance companies (who believe in redistribution of wealth only insofar as all of it goes to them), it is clear that only some form of a single-payer system—like Medicare—can halt the downward spiral.?
Every other industrialized country in the world agrees. In not one of them is there any serious call to change to the American system.? Why do you suppose that is? Can all of them be dumber than we are?
If John Olver is your congressman, thank him for co-sponsoring HR 676 (a bill supporting national universal health insurance). If Richie Neal is your man, tell him to get on board.
Robert Lipton
Holyoke
Kennedy and Labor
Ted Kennedy understood the history of America's middle class. In 1935, Congress allowed workers to form unions by signing petitions. Once they had a union, they could bargain with their employer. Once they could bargain, their wages increased.
For decades, wages increased at the same rate that worker productivity increased. The middle class grew. Families' lives got better.
Then employers started fighting the middle class. Employers stopped recognizing sign-up petitions, and fired "union troublemakers."
Union membership declined. Wages stagnated. The middle class started shrinking. The gap between working people and the rich grew into a chasm.
Ted Kennedy understood these dynamics, and on the 40th anniversary of his brother John's death, he filed the Employee Free Choice Act for the first time. His Act would allow workers to organize a union by petition, like they used to.
Ted Kennedy wanted to restore the system whereby employees could collectively bargain their way to better futures.
Remember the 60 million Americans who would join a union if they could. Remember the 79 percent of workers who fear being fired if they try to start a union. Remember Ted Kennedy, and support his Employee Free Choice Act.
Tom Iacobucci
Massachusetts Jobs With Justice
