( – promoted by odum)
From VWC Blog– http://www.workerscenter.org/w…
Yesterday, with the vote on the universal healthcare bill H.202, we saw politics at its best and at its worst. At its best, because the participation of thousands of Vermonters in the Healthcare Is a Human Right campaign convinced a strong majority in the Senate to pass a historic universal healthcare bill. At its worst, because a majority of senators also approved an amendment to make the bill less than universal, in a cynical political move to appeal to hatred and intolerance.
In a last minute amendment, the Vermont Senate voted 22-8 to exclude one of Vermont’s most vulnerable populations, undocumented farm workers. The amendment was introduced by Senator Brock (Franklin County) and Senator Sears (Bennington County).
From the debate on the Senate floor it seemed that there were a number of Senators who misunderstood the implications of the amendment. But it should come as no surprise that just as we are establishing the commitment to universal healthcare there was a last desperate attempt to undermine our social solidarity by pitting Vermonters against each other. To our knowledge, if passed this would be the first Vermont law to discriminate against people because of their federal immigration status and would set a very bad precedent.
We need to send a loud and clear message that Vermont is not Arizona (which passed a law last year to criminalize and scapegoat immigrant communities, background see: http://www.workerscenter.org/n… When we say healthcare is human right, we mean for everybody who lives and works in Vermont regardless of legal status. We will not tolerate racial profiling and accept the unjust immigration and foreign policies of the federal government. We can do better than that. That is what our universal healthcare system is about. It would not be universal if groups are left out based on this kind of criteria. When we say health care for all, we mean for all!
What you can do:
1. Contact Your Legislator
Call the Sgt-at-arms at 802-828-2228 to tell your legislator that Vermont is not Arizona, that healthcare is a human right and farm workers need healthcare, too.
If you aren’t sure of who your Representatives or Senators are, you can go here: http://leg.state.vt.us/legdir/…
2. Help with Open Letter of Organization, Faith and Community Leaders: Go here: http://www.workerscenter.org/n…
3. Come to May 1st Rally: At 11am on Sunday, May 1, 2011 thousands of Vermonters will meet at City Hall at 39 Main Street to march for universal healthcare. Join us! Check out a video update about the campaign at www.workerscenter.org/peoplesstruggle
MORE INFO: Contact the VWC at 861-4892 or info@workerscenter.org
For more information about the lives of Vermont’s migrant farmworkers, why they come to work in Vermont, and why Vermont’s dairy industry needs them, visit our allies at The Vermont Migrant Farmworker Solidarity Project at http://www.vtmfsp.org/.
This is another example of how a large majority want what the candidates promised last year, and get it with a lot of corporate and political strings attached. Yes, it is discriminatory, and, of course, could be wide open to a challenge in state and federal court. Maybe that’s why they came up with it. Or are they going to cover undocumented farm workers in the Death With Dignity bill?
People need to understand that the Rich and the Corporate Reich will fight to stop, or defile, any bills in any state that, they feel, represent a rebellion against Corporate Government. Corporate Government is about Corporate Profit. And ah yes, I forgot, Corporations are people now (which, I guess, the farm workers are not). And a very very healthy bunch of folks these Corporate people are.
Small surprise Brock, who represents a county largely dependent on agriculture, would want to run with this gambit. No rhetoric or ploy is too cynical for Senator Has It All when it comes to screwing his constituents.
It’s a well known secret that Franklin County dairy farming is heavily dependent on undocumented workers to make the broken economics of the dairy industry work (somewhat) for them.
Presuming that at least some of these Franklin County farmers have come to know and feel compassion for their undocumented laborers, this unnecessarily hard-hearted position might not work in Sen. Brock’s favor. How does he see the farmers coping with sickness and injury in their undocumented workforce? How might this specific language affect an undocumented laborer’s ability to obtain even emergency room care?
Interesting list of who voted for the amendment to exclude
non-white peoplepeople born on the wrong side of an arbitrarily created line on a map:Ashe
Ayer
Benning
Brock
Campbell
Carris
Doyle
Flory
Fox
Galbraith
Giard
Hartwell
Illuzzi
Kitchel
Lyons
Mazza
Miller
Mullin
Nitka
Sears
Snelling
Starr
Versus those who, apparently, whether they support the Bill itself or not, believe that excluding members of our community based on their “legal” status is unfair:
Baruth
Cummings
Kittell
MacDonald
McCormack
Pollina
Westman
White
Though I don’t actually know his personal motivation, I’d like to shine a light on Mr Westman, born and raised on a dairy farm, who I don’t think supported the Bill itself (I could be wrong and don’t have the time/energy to fact-check myself) but, most importantly- as someone who I know is personally spending money out of pocket to keep his dad on their dying dairy farm, knows the importance of recognizing the immigrant community here in VT (legal or otherwise).
Hey Odum and James — a few of us actually voted the way you seem to want folks to vote. So just wondering: maybe you could direct your email fire at those who didn’t, rather than a blanket campaign to all legislators? Save us all a lot of time that way . . .
Sorry for the email fire. Tech problems on our end very sorry, but you deserve nothing but a huge thank you! Thank you for being the first Senator to have the courage to vote against this terrible amendment. Sorry for all of the emails. We’ll try to figure it out asap, we’ll make everybody know who had courage to vote the right way on this and we WILL get this taken out of the final bill!
What a sad state of affairs. The fact that a specific group of vulnerable people are singled out and denied specifically a certain service by an elected body in one of the more “open-minded” states in this country is disgusting. This hits close to home for me. These people are my fellow citizens, who have left a country that has little to offer them, travel risking their lives at the hands of coyotes, mostly cut off from society at large and working in jobs almost nobody else wants. This vote is a vote to punish them for being here and doing what WE DON’T WANT TO DO. The fact that most can’t speak the English language well or at all and haven’t even completed elementary school makes them even more vulnerable to authority. On top of that, they stand out in our small state and are easily apprehended by immigration authorities (ICE). They live in fear of la migra and we give them this petty slap in the face. As there are differences between the Senate bill and the House bill and it will go to Conference Committee, there is still a chance to strike out this discriminatory amendment. Shame on those who voted for this amendment and did so without regret, you don’t deserve my vote in the future and you don’t deserve the job you’ve been elected to.
It’s creating incubators of infectious diseases right in the heart of our food system.
If you can’t go to the doctor and get treated while an illness is mild, you won’t. You’ll wait until it either subsides or makes you so sick you must seek emergency care. Some of those illnesses are going to be contagious ones. Some of them will be contagious ones that can be transferred, onto, for example, the spinach grown at the local farm, or tomatoes, or peppers …
We save far, far more by creating “herd immunity,” than it would ever cost to give insurance to a few hundred extra people, no matter what their paperwork looks like.
If we want healthy communities with lower health care costs, we MUST cover everyone. We need to break the chain of contagion by snipping each link early on, and we can’t do that when some of the links aren’t allowed (courtesy of racism and inhumanity) to seek care.