Friday, October 16, 2009

AFSCME Members Make ‘House Calls for Health Care’

Across the country this weekend, AFSCME nurses and community leaders made house calls, getting their neighbors mobilized to pass health care reform that provides affordable coverage to everyone. These nurses and volunteers asked the people they visited to contact their senators and House members and demand health care reform that really works.

Clad in green scrubs, the AFSCME members went door to door in key states, including Arkansas, Nebraska, Maine, Ohio, North Dakota, Louisiana, Indiana and Delaware. Working America members also took part in door-to-door canvasses for health care reform.

Valentina Zamora-Arreola, a registered nurse in Arkansas, said that health care workers see every day the need for a fairer system:

One of the most important things that we want to see is that healthcare reform is done right. We want to make sure that nurses have their voice out there. We deal with the people when they are sick and we want to make sure that we are looking at healthcare reform options and that we have a public health option.

AFSCME volunteers have carried out an active health care campaign throughout the year.

Today, at the Demos conference, A Better Deal 2009, a panel on health care costs focused on the link between the high levels of uninsured and underinsured young people and the crippling debt they face, as well as the need to make sure health coverage is affordable and available to everyone. The need to build a new, better health care system is critical to a stronger, fairer new economy for the future.

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