Fifty 50 SEIU members attended a Health Care Affordability Summit in Washington, DC yesterday, as part of a nation-wide day of action sponsored by SEIU and other grassroots, faith, labor, consumer and civil rights organizations. Activists and leaders gathered on Capitol Hill to demonstrate solidarity on this critical issue and build support for common sense efforts to meld the best affordability provisions from the House and Senate bills into the final.

Check out photos from the event:

"How do we make sure no working family goes broke because they get sick? That's the heart of why the American people want and need healthcare reform and why the administration and Congress must deliver on this promise," wrote SEIU's Andy Stern and PICO's Rev. George Cummings in a Hill op-ed yesterday. Polls overwhelmingly show that voters' top concern is whether health care will be affordable for their families. Affordability is even more critical in the context of the proposed requirement that all individuals obtain coverage, since support for this requirement swings dramatically based on whether people believe there will be adequate affordability protections. By capping premiums and out-of-pocket costs at levels that families can reasonably afford, and extending Medicaid coverage to more families, Congress can live up to the promise of affordable care for all Americans.

As part of the action, delegations of activists and SEIU members in CA, CO, FL, LA, MO, NY and RI delivered "affordability keys" to their members of Congress to ask them to make affordability for families their top priority. The National Day of Action for Health Care Affordability was organized by SEIU, PICO National Network, Community Catalyst, Families USA, and the Health Rights Organizing Project.