In August, we took our message of health care reform to our elected officials during town halls all across the country, and they listened. But, now that they are back in Washington, they are again under the influence of the insurance industry, which is fighting hard to defeat real reform.

So now we need to take on the insurance industry! Today, SEIU members all over the country took part in the "Big Insurance: Sick of It" rallies hosted by MoveOn, HCAN and our other progressive allies. From LA to New York, members arrived at offices of major health insurance providers and demanded to know why they were standing in the way of health care reform.

MINNESOTA: Fifty SEIU members joined nearly 250 other activists in marching up to the doors of UnitedHealthcare. They presented their demands to UHC representatives, and staged a 15-minute die-in to bring home the point that insurance companies are truly killing Americans. Local member Tammy Brown, who participated in the protest, said, "Big insurance companies are a roadblock to reform. As long as they keeping reaping record profits, the rest of us will keep losing our raises, our health, and even our lives."

FLORIDA: A group of 60 people protested outside the headquarters of Hygeia, a subsidiary of UnitedHealthcare Group. A delegation of eight protestors met with Hygeia representatives and presented them with their demands.

NORTH DAKOTA: Fifty local activists met with the Vice President of Corporate Communications for Blue Cross/ Blue Shield in Fargo, North Dakota. She promised that BCBS would respond to their demands in writing by Friday, and suggested they also meet with the company's CEO.

NEBRASKA: A small group of SEIU members and supporters, led by a local pastor, formed a prayer circle outside the offices of UnitedHealthcare. The pastor also tried to deliver the group's demands to UHC executives, but the staff locked the doors to the building and would not let him enter.

NEW YORK: About 500 people attended an event outside the UHC offices at 1 Penn Plaza. One of the speakers, a new member of 32BJ, recounted how he was forced to go into debt paying for his wife's cancer treatment. Recently, he finally received health insurance, which has allowed him to pay for her medication.

COLORADO: Over 150 people, including 40 SEIU members, protested outside the Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield building in Denver. Three of the participants shared their personal stories about being denied health insurance. Their stories were then underscored by a street theater demonstration that made the same point. The event culminated with three activists attempting to deliver the protestors' demands to BCBS officials. They were turned away at the front door.

CALIFORNIA: Up and down California, SEIU members joined with other activists to take the "Big Insurance: Sick of It" message to the offices of Wellpoint Blue Cross in San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Sacramento. And in Santa Ana, United Healthcare got the same message. Over 700 participated in the actions including 265 SEIU members from locals in every division of the union.

As we all well know, lately there have been a lot of myths and flat-out lies being perpetuated by the far right when it comes to health care reform: "They're going to have death panels!" "They'll ration health care when we most need it!" "They're going to stop our Medicare!" We've all heard them.

We here at Change that Works believe that the best defense against lies is the truth.

So we're providing a toolkit for you to fight back against those who want to stop reform. We believe that this is our best chance to fix a system that is broken, and that burdens hard-working Floridians and their families with unsustainable costs, poor coverage, and a lack of choices when it comes to their health care.

With health care costs expected to grow 71% within the next decade, we cannot afford to wait any longer for reform. This year in Florida, the average family premium costs $12,763-- and is expected to skyrocket to $21,779 within the next decade. With already 52 million people uninsured nationwide, it is imperative that we fight back against anti-reform lies perpetuated by those with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo: the big business of health care insurance.

But we need your help.

The fight for reform is not won in the halls of Congress, but in the conversations between everyday, ordinary people: people like you. So the next time your neighbor says, "I don't support health care reform because it will hurt my small business," don't just let it slide. Talk back. Tell them how reform will level the playing field so that small business can compete with large corporations in providing their employees affordable insurance. If your friend says, "I don't want them to take away my medicare," speak up. Tell them how health care reform won't eliminate medicare, but will instead stop wasteful spending and unnecessary subsidies to insurance companies.

To help you out, we've provided some documents below. Click on them, and download to become informed about the FACTS regarding reforming our health care system.

You can also visit http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/ for more information.

With your help, we can win this battle and reform our health care system to one that provides quality, affordable insurance for all. The time to speak up is now.

The Value of Reform
The Value of Reform in FloridaFINAL.pdf

What Reform Means for You
Reform Means for You.pdf

Bankruptcy 2009
Bankruptcy-2009.pdf

The Cost of Doing Nothing
cost of doing nothing.pdf

Stop the lies. Speak out today.

"Let me be clear: if we do not control these costs, we will not be able to control our deficit. If we do not reform health care, your premiums and out-of-pocket costs will continue to skyrocket. If we do not act, 14,000 Americans will continue to lose their health insurance every single day. These are the consequences of inaction. These are the stakes of the debate we're having right now."

That was President Obama on Wednesday. Today, we got further proof of the cost of doing nothing. Just look at the table released this morning by the Center for American Progress.

Within ten years, if we fail to address the rising cost of health care in America, the average health insurance premiums paid by families will nearly double, from $13,500 today to $22,400 in 2019. Oh, but it gets worse - because in addition to rising premiums, Americans lucky enough to have health insurance still face increasingly burdensome co-payments and out-of-pocket costs - the kinds of costs that you can't haggle away when you're in severe pain.

In Florida, our premiums will increase from $12,763 in 2009 to $21,779 in 2019. Given that Florida faces additional hurdles, such as 3,560 people losing coverage every week, and 13,600 Floridians who died between 2000 and 2006 because they did not have health coverage, inaction in the face of economic danger is something we can ill afford - and yet, that's exactly what happens every day that we fail to act on this.

Here's the thing: it doesn't have to be this way! The projections that CAP outlined don't have to come true. We can write a different story. We know how to "bend the curve" of increasing health costs. We can reform our health care system so that all Americans have access to quality, affordable health care.

One way we're keeping the focus on reform is by joining with our friends at Fire Dog Lake in asking Florida's Representatives in Congress to stay and work on passing health care legislation like HR 3200, "America's Affordable Health Choices Act," over the August recess. You can sign their petition here. Congress shouldn't take a three-week vacation when 14,000 Americans are losing their insurance coverage every day. That's the equivalent of 55% of the population of Key West.

Let's make this happen. Florida can't afford the cost of doing nothing any longer.

In the debate over health care reform, those on the frontlines of this crisis - namely, our nation's nurses - provide valuable insight. President Obama, who remarked this year at a townhall, "I just love nurses," has publicly addressed the importance of RNs as frontline caregivers, noting that in some rural areas, nurses are a community's only provider of health care. He's also pointed out that it's often nurses, not doctors, who make critical health care decisions for patients.

So when a registered nurse of 25 years - SEIU 1991 President Martha Baker, RN - recently pens an op-ed in the Miami Heraldon fixing our health care system, it's worth considering as part of our national debate. Says Baker:

Our system -- which brings the uninsured to our emergency-room doors at the point when they must receive the most expensive form of care at the most advanced stages of illness -- is broken. Our patients who can pay end up paying more than they can afford because an easily treatable condition has escalated to a crisis. More than the financial care, the suffering of patients and the risk of mortality or permanent disability increases when chronic conditions are allowed to develop untreated....

Today's health system, which leaves more than 47 million Americans -- more than 600,000 of them in South Florida -- with no healthcare coverage at all, drastically distorts the entire system and adds enormously to the cost of healthcare for everyone else. As the costs in the system rise, more people are pushed into the ranks of the uninsured, which forces them to go without the primary care that in most cases would keep them healthy.

Those of us who are fortunate enough to be covered by insurance plans still know they can be expensive, complicated and loaded with trap doors. A recent report by the American Medical Association has documented that fully 60 percent of Americans who declare bankruptcy are forced to do so by healthcare costs. A public health-insurance plan is necessary to ensure adequate coverage, foster choice and competition and bring down costs.

Fortunately there is a way out of this vicious cycle. With a healthcare-reform package that ensures affordable coverage, includes a strong public health-insurance option and requires employers to share in the responsibility of covering workers, we can avoid an even more disastrous future.

Now is the time to get healthcare reform right and actually produce workable choices for all, including a public health-insurance option.

As a registered nurse, Baker speaks directly from personal experience, and bears witness to the challenges Floridians encounter with our health care system every day. As a union leader, she understands the financial burdens inflicted on working Floridians by an inefficient, badly broken system.

As the battle for health care reform comes down to the wire doctors and nurses represent an invaluable voice in this debate. And with this week's endorsement of the health care reform bills before Congress by the American Medical Association, it's clear that nurses and doctor's alike agree that we cannot afford to wait.

Below is the text of a message we sent out today. Please take a moment to write Sen. Nelson and Sen. Martinez and tell them to listen to what Floridians need:

It could be worse. It's hard to imagine how things
could be worse these days: between unemployment, the financial crisis,
and the state of healthcare, it's no secret that Florida is hurting.



But if you can believe it, there's a group that continues to fight ways
to improve the lives of Floridians.  For years, the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce has done all it can to stop working people in Florida from
getting ahead.

Click here to write to Senator Nelson and Senator Martinez and tell them to listen to the needs of working people, not the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Click here to write to Senator Nelson and Senator Martinez and tell them to listen to
working people, not the greedy CEOs at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Click here to send a message now. Thanks for writing to Florida's Senators.  Your voice can make the difference.



In solidarity,



Megan Rosati

Change that Works

www.seiu.org/changethatworks/florida/

This weekend, about 100 union service employees, policemen and firefighters in Orlando, FL, met to discuss budget cuts which would force them from their jobs. In a city that Forbes magazine recently ranked as the sixth most dangerous city in America, many are questioning how having fewer police offers on the streets of Orlando might affect the safety of citizens.

"It's not the unions causing the crisis. The unions are the ones putting out your fires, responding to your domestic problems, picking up your garbage and making sure clean water comes to your house," said Joshua Willis, a solid waste worker and chair of a SEIU local union in Florida. Read about the 222 workers Mayor Buddy Dyer proposes to lay off in order to fix the Orlando budget deficit.

Once again, big business is determined to keep their profits at the expense of affordable health care coverage. The profile of Florida's own Rick Scott in last week's Jacksonville.com shows how far we have to go in the fight for quality, affordable coverage.

Founder of Solantic, a pay-for-care business, Rick Scott has a vested interest in maintaining a monopoly on our state's health care system:

Borrowing from the retail industry, Solantic posts its prices on a board above the receptionist's desk. There are only three prices available. An $89 trip tends to be for cold sufferers who just need a prescription for some antibiotics. At the $149 level, something more complex like a throat culture may be involved. And the $229 bill is there to capture complex cases, like broken limbs.

Co-founder Karen Bowling said the goal is to expand to 1,000 locations as the
company adopts a franchising model.

Meanwhile, Rick Scott is positioning his involvement as a benevolent, self-less gesture--despite from being forced to resign as CEO of Columbia/HCA healthcare in 1997. With political contributions totaling, "$54,000 last year, all to Republicans," and a contribution of "$5 million dollars of his own money into Conservatives for Patient's Rights", it's clear he's a man who knows which side of his bread is buttered.

Don't let the Rick Scotts of this country win the battle. Health care should not be about big business taking advantage of customers without a better choice. Quality, affordable health care coverage is a right that everyone in Florida--and the country--deserves.

Speak out--Write a letter to the editor in support of quality, affordable coverage for EVERYONE--today. http://action.seiu.org/page/speakout/stopscottslies

Momentum is building for real reform to take place at Bank of America.

Today thousands of taxpayers will tell Bank of America it's time for reform - and for CEO Ken Lewis to be fired - by gathering at "Take Back the Economy" events around the country. The purpose of these events is to show Bank of America it's time for reform - you can collect "taxpayer proxy cards" that we'll deliver to Bank of America's annual meeting on Wednesday.

What kind of impact does Bank of America have in Florida? Here are the facts:

Bank of America is the largest bank in the United States, with an estimated $2.3 trillion in assets and counts almost 1 in 2 households as customers. Bank of America is also the country's second largest issuer of credit cards. In Florida, Bank of America is the second largest bank and largest mortgage lender.

Bank of America is one of the largest small business lenders in the state, with more than 87,629 loans to small businesses totaling $1.4 billion.

Bank of America has put taxpayers on the hook for as much as $200 billion in bailout money, making it one of the top two recipients. And, it's estimated that Bank of America costs Florida taxpayers an additional $5.4 million annually for uninsured and underinsured employees who are forced to rely on publicly-funded state health care programs.

Bank of America in Florida by the numbers:

Branches: 656

Deposits (2008)
Deposits: $69.4 billion
Deposit Rank: 2

Mortgages (2007)
Mortgages: 122,149
Mortgage Value: $26.1 billion
Mortgage Rank (2006): 1

Small Business Loans (2007)
Total Small Business Loans: 87,629
Total Small Business Loan Value: $1.4 billion

Employees
Branch Workers (est): 5,520
Healthcare Cost to Taxpayers (est): $5.4 million

We cannot get our economy back on track without repairing the American health care system. Health care reform is not just a moral imperative, but also an economic necessity. In 2007, the U.S. economy lost as much as $207 billion as a result of the poor health and shorter lifespan of the uninsured.

Skyrocketing health care costs add to families' already overwhelming burden, threatening their health and financial security. We can do better. Solving America's health care crisis will improve quality of care, reduce costs and make businesses more competitive.

The urgent need for reform is more apparent now in Florida than ever. In the past eight years, health care premiums for family coverage have risen more than three times faster than wages. With 8.1% unemployed, many families are at risk of losing their health coverage. The message is clear: Florida's families urgently need Congress to take direct action on health care reform.

Supporting Facts

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• Health Insurance premiums in Florida increased by 72.0% from 2000 to 2007, while median earnings only increased a mere 20.2%. The median yearly wage in 2007 for Florida was only $27,353, but the average health care premium for a family was $11,720. This means that premiums grew 3.6 times faster than wages.


• In Florida, approximately 3,873,000 non-elderly people spent more than 10% of their pre-tax family income on health care costs in 2008. 79.7% of those people have insurance, but are underinsured. 3,087,000 Florida residents with insurance spent more than 10% of their pre-tax income on health care costs, and 883,000 spend more than 25% of their income.


• By 2016, projections show that Florida families will have to pay close to $22,400 for health care or over 43 percent of median household income. This would represent a 76 percent increase over 2008 levels.


• In addition, more and more Florida residents have been forced into the exorbitantly expensive individual market, as unemployment reaches massive heights. As of December 2008, 751.753 Florida residents were unemployed. That reflects a loss of over 336,000 jobs statewide last year alone, increasing the state unemployment rate by over 1 percentage point.


• If the state keeps losing jobs at the rate it did last year, 1,360,143 people in Florida will be unemployed by 2010. 46.38% of insured Florida residents depend on their employers for their health insurance. If nothing is done to stem the economic downturn and reform our health care system, 282,168 Florida workers will lose their current health coverage, meaning that 121,678 more people will likely enroll in COBRA. That leaves 160,490 people who will have to enroll in Medicaid, fend for themselves on the private market, or become uninsured.


• This year Florida faces a $5.7 billion budget shortfall, and as a result, the state government has implemented a hiring freeze on state employees. As of 2007, 20% of all state spending has gone to Medicaid and SCHIP. $14.6 billion went to spending on Medicaid alone.


• As of 2007 there were already 843,006 uninsured children in Florida, and more than 2,840,918 uninsured adults. 1,190,935 of uninsured adults in Florida also live below the Federal Poverty Line. Florida's economy lost as much as $14.55 billion because of the poor health and shorter lifespan of the uninsured in 2007. That equates $4,000 per uninsured Florida resident.


• Of the top 10 employers in the state of Florida, 4 of them are Healthcare Providers. According to the US Census, 814,904 individuals work in the Heath Care Sector in the state & make an average of $3,876 per month, which accounts for about $3.2 billion in wages per month.

The health of the American economy cannot improve without addressing the healthcare crisis. Building on the existing healthcare system, quality, affordable healthcare can be guaranteed to every American. It's the reform truly needed to rebuild Florida's economy.