The New York State budget process has spilled over into this week (past its April 1^st deadline), and is due to wrap-up in the next couple of days. There are still some key health care issues on the table that need one final push, and we urge everyone to contact lawmakers about them.

Here are the outstanding health care issues advocates are supporting:

• Public health insurance eligibility for ALL low-income New Yorkers regardless of immigration status (“Coverage for All”)
• A living wage for health care workers who provide home and community-based long-term care (“Fair Pay for Home Care”)
• Standardizing Medicaid eligibility criteria so that low-income people on Medicare qualify for Medicaid just like everybody else (“Medicare-Medicaid Equality”)
• Fair distribution of Indigent Care Pool funds to only those hospitals deemed “Enhanced Safety Net Providers”, as required by federal law.
• Higher Medicaid rates for health care providers to restore cuts from previous years and provide a long-delayed raise in general.

Here’s how to contact key State leaders to express your opinion on one or more of the above:

• Governor Kathy Hochul: 518-474-8390
• Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins: 518-455-2585
• Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie: 518-455-3791

Some background on the State-of-Play:

Coverage for All – At the very last minute, Governor Hochul and her Division of the Budget have suddenly asserted that the cost of this provision is much higher than a reputable independent study from the Citizen’s Budget Commission and the Community Service Society of New York, yet she has provided no documentation to back up the claim. Unfortunately, many Albany observers note that Governor Hochul is not supportive of including all immigrants in various proposals to help lower-income people.

Fair Pay for Home Care – Governor Hochul and her Division of the Budget originally proposed that home care workers be provided with one-shot bonuses to attract and retain them as part of the long-term care workforce. The Legislature prefers instead to provide these workers with a permanent pay raise. New York’s current home care workforce is woefully inadequate, to the point where thousands of frail and disabled New Yorkers have been approved for such services but there is literally no one ready to provide the care because the salaries are too low to draw and keep people in the profession.

Medicare-Medicaid Equality – Over the past decade, all of New York’s public health insurance programs have significantly raised their income eligibility levels and eliminated asset tests as part of their applications. However, the State has yet to do either for low-income people on Medicare who need Medicaid to augment the services Medicare does not cover (vision, dental, hearing, and long-term care) that everybody else on Medicaid routinely receives.

Governor Hochul initially proposed that the State standardize Medicaid eligibility criteria for all low-income people across the board, and the Legislature agreed. However, suddenly the Elder Law attorney lobby has flexed its political muscle to sew doubt with Governor Hochul and some legislators about eliminating an asset test. One of the major lines of business of these lawyers has been to assist middle and upper-income people on Medicare to restructure their finances so that they can then qualify for Medicaid coverage while also sheltering their assets. However, most low-income people on Medicare cannot afford these legal services. and they are denied Medicaid eligibility until they spend-down any modest assets they may have, thereby forcing themselves into poverty first.

Safety Net Hospital Support — For many years now, almost all hospitals across New York have received funding from the State’s billion dollar Indigent Care Pool that reimburses hospitals for services provided to uninsured and Medicaid patients. However, federal law requires that federal funds received for that pool must only go to those hospitals that provide care to large numbers of these patients. These hospitals are collectively known as Safety Net Providers. Unfortunately, New York has yet to update its distribution formula because of resistance from politically-influential hospital systems that would likely lose this funding. Neither Governor Hochul nor the Legislature have put this idea on the table in this year’s budget process.

Higher Medicaid Rates for Providers – Generally speaking, while nothing is locked down in the budget negotiations until everything is locked down, Gov. Hochul’s proposals on this issue seem on solid ground and the Legislature is in full support. So barring anything unusual happening at the last minute, they seem likely to be included. In addition, the health care provider community is strongly in support and they are usually very influential on health care issues in Albany.

Some larger factors at play:

• At the very last minute, after the public hearings were over and the Legislature’s one-house budget bills were passed, Gov. Hochul suddenly proposed a $600 million subsidy for a new football stadium in Buffalo, and also demanded major criminal justice reforms that technically have nothing to do with the budget per se. Both these ideas have fostered confusion and division in the Legislature.
• Advocates are demanding increased transparency, accountability, and justification for the State’s various regional economic development projects that over the years have generally utterly failed to meet their objectives, and they were often just shoveling billions of dollars to politically-connected businesses and institutions. This funding can be put to much better use to grow our state’s economy by increasing spending on long-underfunded health and social programs that help everyday New Yorkers.
• While the State currently projects a revenue surplus for the new fiscal year (estimates range from $6 to $10 billion), Gov. Hochul want to take a significant portion of that and put it in the State’s “rainy-day” reserve fund. However, many health and human service advocates are saying that “it’s raining now” for many lower-income everyday New Yorkers, particularly in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and its accompanying economic recession that many communities have yet to emerge from.

One of the most exciting proposals on the table during the current state budget negotiations in Albany is “Coverage for All.”  It will open up New York’s special public insurance “Essential Plan” to all low-income New Yorkers regardless of their immigration status. This is nothing radical since we have long covered all children and adolescents in low-income families through Child Health Plus, and pregnant and post-partum women through Medicaid. If we’ve learned nothing from living through two years of pandemic, it’s crucial to make sure everyone is enrolled in health insurance in order to promote good public health.

As we head into the final week of budget negotiations, NOW is the time for ALL OF US to call our Governor Hochul and state legislators to make sure Coverage for All gets included in their final agreement.  The good news is that there’s strong support for it in both the State Senate and Assembly. However, so far Governor Hochul is not yet on board, so the Legislature must stand strong and fight for it.

We urge everyone to contact state lawmakers on this issue, by phone, email, and social media:

• Governor Hochul – 518-474-8390 (phone); online email form here; @GovKathyHochul (Twitter & Instagram); Facebook page here
• New York State Senators – Find contact info by Senator here
• New York State Assemblymembers – Find contact info by Assemblymember here

• Simple message to Governor Hochul: “Accept the Legislature’s Coverage for All proposal in the final budget deal.”
• Simple message to Legislators:  “Keep fighting for Coverage for All in the final budget deal.”

Several years ago, the Coverage for All campaign was established by Health Care for All New York to develop and push for proposals to provide health insurance to all immigrant New Yorkers, many of whom can have few public or private coverage options. We’re proud to be on its leadership team that is being led by the New York Immigration Coalition and Make the Road New York, and includes around 160 organizations. You can learn all about this campaign here.

About 1 million New Yorkers remain uninsured. Over 400,000 of them are immigrants who don’t qualify for public insurance programs or federal subsidies to purchase private coverage. Approximately 245,000 of them could become eligible for our Essential Plan if our state steps forward to do the right thing in this year’s budget. Other states like California and Illinois are already providing coverage to more immigrants, so it’s time for New York to join that esteemed club.

t’s that time of year again!   The 2022 New York State Legislative Session opened earlier this month with Gov. Kathy Hochul’s State of the State address where she laid out her broad policy and legislative goals, and there’s some very good stuff she’s put on the table (and some stuff missing.)  A couple of weeks ago, she released her proposed FY 2022-23 state budget, and there’s some very stuff in it (and some stuff missing.)

Now it’s time for all of us to all get up-to-speed and in motion!  Here’s a few upcoming events to help everyone prepare:

Thurs. Feb. 3, 1 to 4 p.m. – Health Care for All New York’s Online Annual Winter Meeting. The keynote speaker is Danielle Holahan, Executive Director of New York State of Health, plus there will be a special salute to the Campaign for Excluded Workers.Strategic campaigns to be discussed include 1) proposals to expand and improve public health insurance programs to more lower-income people, 2) helping uninsured people get enrolled in and use coverage they are eligible for, 3) increasing funding for safety net hospitals, 4) new rights and protections for patients with medical debt they cannot pay, and 5) improving a local community’s role in the oversight of their hospitals; RSVP and more info here.

Tues. Feb. 8, 9:30 a.m. – All-Day Online Public Hearing on Gov. Hochul’s Budget Proposals for Health Care and Medicaid; RSVPs and more info here; and watch live online here.

Fri. Feb. 11, 1:30 p.m. –Webinar for Advocates on Health Care Aspects of Gov. Hochul’s Budget Proposals; jointly sponsored by Campaign for NY Health, Coverage for All, Health Care for All NY, and Medicaid Matters NY; RSVPs and more info here,

The Legislature’s budget session concludes on March 31^st, so we’ve only got about 2 months to make sure we can get the best stuff possible in the budget. After that, we’ll be pivoting to several non-budgetary proposals to make sure they move forward before the end of this year’s legislative session in early June.

What Gov. Hochul is proposing in her budget for health care:

• Expanding eligibility for Medicaid coverage for more low-income people on Medicare.
• Expanding eligibility for Essential Plan coverage for more moderate-income people.
• Improving Child Health Plus coverage, and eliminating all nominal premiums for it for moderate-income families.
• Expanding Medicaid post-pregnancy coverage from 2 months up to a full year for all legal residents.
• Licensing and regulating Pharmacy Benefit Management companies.

What’s still missing for health care:

• Expanding Essential Plan coverage to all low-income immigrants.
• Including all immigrant women under the post-pregnancy Medicaid expansion (see above.)
• Directing Indigent Care Pool funding solely to safety net hospitals that serve large numbers of uninsured, low-income, and Medicaid patients.
• Repealing eligibility restrictions on Medicaid long-term care enacted in 2020 but not yet implemented.
• Raising salaries for Medicaid home and community-based long-term care workers to a living wage level, and making sure that they and their families will not arbitrarily be throw them off needed public programs for health care, food, housing, and utilities.
• Eliminating the arbitrary annual growth cap for Medicaid spending.

What about universal health care?  This issue is not being raised by either Gov. Hochul or our legislative champions in the context of the FY 2022-23 budget negotiations. Instead, it will come into play after April 1^st, so watch for future emails about that then.  In the meantime, as you speak to lawmakers, we urge everyone to continue to stress the imperative of moving toward a statewide universal health care program as quickly as possible. If the COVID-19 pandemic has shown us anything, it is that we cannot fully address the public health and health care needs of all New Yorkers without one.

We’re excited to invite all New York health care and social justice advocates and activists to our 2021 Health Care Justice Leadership Annual Gala! We’ll be gathering online to shine a spotlight on and salute some very worthy individuals and groups who’ve risen to the occasion in exemplary ways during 2021, and we want EVERYONE to join us!  Once again this year, people can join us at the end of the workday from the comfort of your own home or office (so that we can keep everyone safe) while we celebrate our honorees and hear words of wisdom from our keynote speaker.

Our honorees this year include:

• For governmental leadership, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries

Rep. Jeffries has served New York’s 8^th Congressional District, encompassing central and southeast Brooklyn neighborhoods since 2013. He is currently a member of the Budget and Judiciary Committees, and chairs the House Democratic Caucus. During the current 117^th Congress, he has led successful votes to provide pandemic relief, update and expand our social contract and safety net via the Build Back Better Act, advance tax fairness, and protect and improve democracy via the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.

• For Trade Union Leadership, Barbara Bowen and Judy Sheridan Gonzalez

Barbara Bowen and Judy Sheridan-Gonzalez both stepped down in 2021 as the president of their respective unions, the Professional Staff Congress of the City University of New York, and the New York State Nurses Association. Both have been dynamic, visionary women labor leaders in our city and state. Both led their unions in new politically progressive directions and turned away from go-along-to-get-along approaches to people in power. Both understood the importance of working in partnership with community leaders and members to advance health care and social justice.

• For community leadership, NY-4 Health Care Action, and Mary Clark

NY-4 Health Care Action is a collaboration of activist groups in Nassau County who have joined forces to engage their local members of Congress and constituents in support of the Build Back Better Act and its health care provisions. Leader groups include Indivisible Nassau County, Long Island Activists, Long Island Progressive Coalition, Nassau County Democratic Socialists of America, NY Progressive Action Network, NYS Alliance for Retired Americans, and 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East.

Mary Clark has been the Southern Tier Regional Director for Citizen Action of New York since 1985, and has led their federal health care advocacy efforts for many years in coalition with many other groups. Since 2008, she has coordinated the Health Care for America Now campaign across New York State.

Keynote speaker: Hon. Mark Levine

Mark Levine has just started his tenure as Manhattan Borough President after serving 8 years on the New York City Council representing the 7th Council District, encompassing the Manhattan neighborhoods of Manhattan Valley, Morningside Heights, West Harlem, Hamilton Heights, and Sugar Hill. During his second term on the Council (2018-21), he chaired its Committee on Health. In that role, he often held both the Cuomo and DeBlasio administrations publicly accountable for their policies and actions with regard to the COVID-19 pandemic, something few other public officials were willing to do, and he often spoke out for the needs and concerns of the community and health care workers.

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Please make plans to join us online on Thursday evening January 27th from 5:00 to 6:30 p.m. We’ll miss seeing and greeting everyone in person again this year, but look forward to doing so again soon, hopefully next year. In the meantime, feel free to bring your own libations and nibbles to your at-home screen, and wear your best activist gear so that we can see the beautiful diversity of our movement!

How to attend our online 2021 Health Care Justice Leadership Annual Gala:

• FIRST, EVERYONE should RSVP here so that their name gets on the list to receive further information by email about how to join the event in real time.
• NEXT, Individuals should make your donation here. Our suggested contribution is $75/person, however any amount larger or smaller is welcome and appreciated. Once a donation is made, you will receive the online connection information for the event.
• Unions and organizations can submit their donations here once a specific commitment is made to us via email. Groups can support our Gala by joining the Host Committee, placing an announcement in the online Commemorative Journal, and/or reserving a package of tickets.  Each group will receive a number of complimentary tickets based on the type and amount of support, and they can be used by any leader, member, or staff.

We need to ask everyone to please be as generous as you can with your financial support for our Annual Gala this year. Because of the ongoing pandemic, we were not able to undertake our Annual Dues Campaign in the spring, so we now have to make up the difference. Fortunately, we had sufficient reserves on hand at the time to see us through the summer and fall, but now our resources are depleted and must be replenished for us to continue our important work in 2022.  

We have several efforts to advance health care justice and health care for all during 2022. First and foremost, in Congress we need to get the Build Back Better Act over the finish line, advance tax fairness, and defend and improve voting rights and democracy across the U.S. Here in New York, we are seeking to expand public health coverage to all low-income immigrants and pregnant women, expand Medicaid access and improve Medicare affordability for low-income seniors and people with disabilities, end patient medical debt, strengthen safety net hospitals, and improve community engagement in the oversight of hospitals and nursing homes. Your generous financial support will enable us to foster community and labor collaboration toward these goals and other issues that will arise over the course of the year.

One year ago, an organized crowd of hundreds of rabid right-wing radicals violently stormed the U.S. Capitol in a naked power grab to overturn the results of the November 2020 presidential election. Their insurrection was a blatant attack on our nation’s democratic process, and an attempt to negate the legitimate votes of millions of people. Millions of us watched live television coverage of their rampage in shock and horror while on pandemic lockdown. Fortunately, they did not succeed (…this time around.)

The political forces behind last year’s insurrection on January 6^th have not given up their efforts. They have been working diligently since then, primarily in state capitals and county seats, to fundamentally restructure elections so as to a) shut out certain voters, b) cast aside results they don’t like, and c) create bizarre legislative districts that will bias election results in partisan ways. We cannot let them succeed.

This coming Thursday January 6^th, on the one-year anniversary of the Capitol Insurrection, millions of everyday people across the US will be gathering in their own communities to hold “democracy vigils”. Participants will collectively affirm “never again!”, and commit to each other to not stand idly by while others attack and undermine the democratic process. Information on all these events can be found here, and a social media toolkit is available here.

Here in New York, several evens are being planned for that day. The main one is an online remembrance and call to action that will take place during the early evening starting at 6:30 p.m. Sign up here to get all the relevant information, and/or check out this Facebook event listing.

This online event is being jointly organized by the Let New York Vote and Fair Elections for New York campaigns. Both coalitions have long been champions for democracy reforms that a) protect and expand voting rights, b) keep the election process non-partisan, c) curtail the influence of special interest and “dark” money in election campaigns, and d) prohibit gerrymandered legislative districts that skew election results in partisan ways. They’ll be sharing information with us about bills in Congress such as the For the People Act, John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, and other proposals that will protect and improve democracy in the US, and what we can do as everyday people to help push them forward.

Three other in-person events will be taking place on January 6^th during the mid-day in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Staten Island:

• Two Accountability Rallies are happening simultaneously starting at 12 noon outside the district offices of Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (NY-4). One year ago, she voted to reject the Electoral College results and instead sided with the insurrectionists. Her Brooklyn office is at 7716 Third Ave. in Bay Ridge. Her Staten Island office is at 1911 Richmond Ave. in Bull’s Head. These rallies are being organized by local groups in both parts of her district. More info can be found here (Brooklyn) and here (Staten Island.)
• A demonstration calling out the coup planners and leaders will be held starting at 1 p.m. on the steps of the main branch of the New York Public Library at 42^nd St. and 5^th Avenue in midtown Manhattan. More info can be found here.

The fight for health care for all and health care justice across the U.S. fundamentally hinges on protecting and improving our democracy. Without it, we have no chances to achieve these goals. We urge all who strive for them to join in one or more of the events laid out above.

Since our nation’s founding, democracy has always been a work-in-progress with both major failings and significant breakthroughs. The improvements and expansions have always been driven by everyday people leading those efforts, and not the comfortable and entrenched political status quo of the day. Our job now is to rise to the occasion now and stand up to protect democracy and push for needed democracy reforms.

As 2021 draws to a close, we want to everyone for all you’ve done to help us do our work over the past year, whether you showed up in person somewhere, joined in something online, posted something to social media, or just sent us a check. We couldn’t have done all that we did without you on our team.

Once again, it’s been a very challenging year for all of us given the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. We began with some optimism given the new vaccines that rolled out last winter and spring and the subsequent lessening rates of infections, hospitalizations, and deaths. We hoped we were turning a corner and could move ahead with opening up again. However, the delta and omicron variants have reminded us that we still have necessary work to do together to bring the pandemic under control, and that remains Job #1.

As we look back over the past year, we want to recap our work together:

Winter – Working with our partners across the US in the Health Care for America Now (HCAN) campaign, the American Rescue Plan Act got through Congress and signed by President Biden. This law provided immediate relief to millions of everyday people and our families as we struggled to cope with the immediate crisis of the pandemic and its accompanying economic recession.  

Working with our partners in Health Care for All New York (HCFANY) and Medicaid Matters New York, health insurance premium and out-of-pocket costs were eliminated for low-income people enrolled in our state’s Essential Plan, and harmful budget cuts to various health care safety net providers, home care services, and public health programs were staved off by the Legislature.

Spring – Up in Albany, we and our partners in HCFANY successfully pushed for measures to a) ameliorate hospital patient medical debt, and b) require hospitals to assess the health equity impacts of their business plans and practices on the communities they serve. We also pushed forward proposals for health coverage for all immigrants and universal health care for all New Yorkers, although those efforts have yet to get across the legislative finish line.

Summer and Fall – Working with our partners in HCAN and its sister Lower Drug Prices Now (LDPN) campaign, robust proposals for pandemic and economic recovery came forward from the Biden administration and various congressional committees to a) make health insurance more affordable for more low- and middle-income people and families, b) lower drug prices for millions of patients, c) adding new Medicare benefits, d) expanding home care services for the elderly and disabled, and e) create and expand s whole slew of additional social benefits to improve the plight of everyday people in need.  

We built support in our region’s congressional delegation for the Build Back Better Act that encapsulated the above proposals, and worked to keep the bill as expansive as possible given strong opposition from the usual vested special interests. The bill did pass the House in November, and is now before the Senate where we hope final negotiations will move it on to President Biden’s desk soon after the first of the year.

Going Global – For the first time since our founding some 28 years ago, we broadened out the scope of our work to include an international focus. In the context of the ongoing pandemic, we know that “no one is safe until everyone is safe” and that “the pandemic isn’t over for any of us until it’s over for all of us.” We joined forces with local, national, and international groups as part of the People’s Vaccine movement to push for the temporary suspension of international intellectual property rights and rules so that COVID-19 vaccines, tests, and treatments can be quickly produced and used worldwide. The progress has been slow but steady, and each new viral variant outbreak reminds us that the need is urgent …for ALL of us. However, Big Pharma is pushing back hard in order to protect their outrageous profiteering off the pandemic, and US leadership on the global stage is required for a breakthrough on the stand-off, particularly at the World Trade Organization.

Advancing Tax Equity – For years, we have understood that restoring fairness and progressivity to both our state and national tax systems is fundamental to the achievement of health care for all. Without sufficient revenues raised from those who have the most resources (often protected by tilted schemes of various sorts), it remains impossible to get to universal health care. Things began to turn a corner this year in New York with new taxes on large corporations and the super-rich that were raised last spring thanks to the Invest in our New York campaign that we were part of.  Nationally, Americans for Tax Fairness spearheaded similar efforts so that the federal Build Back Better Act is fully paid for, and we in HCAN coordinated support for that from health care advocates.

Protecting and Improving Our Democracy – It’s no secret to anyone that democracy in the US (while not yet fully realized) is under concerted attack from forces that seek to entrench and expand the domination of an elite status quo. The insurrection at the US Capitol a year ago was but a culmination of a long and still-ongoing process to negate the votes of millions of everyday people in order to preserve white supremacy and advance corporate hegemony. In addition, new laws in many states will suppress voter participation and create mechanisms to overturn election results next year and beyond. We know that without a reasonably functioning democracy in the US, health care justice and health care for all will simply not be possible (as is true for many other social justice causes.) We have joined forces with our partners in the Let New York Vote and Fair Elections for New York campaigns to strengthen democracy here at home, and advance proposals in Congress to expand voting rights, protect election results, blunt the influence of Big Dark Money in our election campaigns, and eliminate partisan districting.

That’s a lot of work under our belt, with lots yet-to-get-done in the year ahead. Again, we can’t do any of this without the participation and support of scores of everyday New Yorkers whom we thank from the bottom of our heart..

People can help us get things off on the right foot for 2022 by making a financial contribution now. Simply click on the donate button here on our website located on the right side of our home page.

Democracy in the US is being killed off and may be dead soon, and we all need to ACT NOW to protect and improve it!

A variety of pro-democracy and social justice issue advocates are joining forces on this Thurs. Dec. 9 for a national day of action to protect democracy in the U.S. It is coinciding with the opening of a two-day virtual Global Summit for Democracy that is being convened by President Biden. We all commend this effort, but also want to call attention to the attack on democracy that is already well underway here at home, and the imperative for our leaders to counter it RIGHT NOW. Here in New York, we are joining with others in the Fair Elections for New York campaign, Black Voters Matter, and the Workers Circle to manifest the New York component.

We invite you to join us for a “Funeral for US Democracy? Voting Rights Now!” event that will be taking place outside the United Nations starting at 10 a.m. tomorrow (Thurs. Dec. 9^th). We will gather on the east end of Dag Hammarskjold Plaza (1^st Ave. and 47^th St.) to undertake a solemn funeral march to the US Mission to the UN (nearby at 1^st Ave. and 45^th St.) for a media conference, and then continue on to the front gates of the UN campus located at 1^st Ave. and 42^nd St. for a concluding activity. We ask all participants to wear black clothing, and to dress warmly since the forecast is for cold weather.

How you can participate:

• RSVP here so that we know how many to expect (…and then be sure to show up!)
• Share this Facebook event with others to encourage awareness and participation.
• Use this social media toolkit before, during, and after the event.
• Watch livestreams from Fair Elections for New York over Twitter and Facebook (if you can’t make it.)

Here’s the backstory:

For over a decade now, a variety of political and economic forces have joined forces to directly and more broadly undermine democracy in the U.S. at the national, state, and local government levels. Their tools are laws and court rulings that 1) suppress voter participation, 2) inject “Big Dark Money” into the political process, 3) rig legislative districts, and 4) overturn election outcomes. To date, 19 states have adopted laws that promote these goals. (New York is not one of them.) Taken together, the outcome they foster is a political system dominated by a politically-conservative minority and plutocracy that values corporate profiteering, racism and sexism, and unfettered power for its own sake, with little if any concern for the needs and desires of everyday people.

There are three major bills now advancing in Congress that will counter these efforts and improve the democratic process overall:

• For the People Act (S.1/HR 1,,Merkley /Sarbanes)
• Freedom to Vote Act (S.2747, Klobuchar)
• John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act (S.4, HR 4, Leahy/Sewell)

These bills must be enacted before the end of this year to have any significant impact on next year’s midterm elections so that a) as many people as possible can vote, b) Big Dark Money influence will be lessened, c) legislative districts will be impartial, and d) election results will be respected. NONE of these outcomes will be guaranteed otherwise, and our core democracy will be undermined. Congress will be recessing for the upcoming end-of-year holiday season in less than two weeks, so movement on these bills must happen NOW!

We urge everyone to contact Senators Schumer and Gillibrand and YOUR member of Congress to express your opinion about the bills listed above, and the need for immediate action to protect and improve our democracy so that next year’s elections can be fair, just, and inclusive. If successful, we will have a much better political landscape on which to advance measures toward universal health care here in New York and nationally.

Democracy and health care:

We here in the US would have had a robust national, universal health care program long ago were it not for the inordinate influence that the various corporate special interests and their political shills have over our nation’s political system. These influences have long compromised our democracy in many ways to prevent lawmakers from taking action to improve the health and well-being of everyday people in order to protect and expand corporations’ profiteering. In fact, enacting a universal health care program would be a dramatic advancement of democracy per se. For us, democracy reform IS health care reform.

Across the world, over one quarter of a billion people have now contracted COVID-19, and over 5 million of them have died. Here in the US, nearly 5 million of us have contacted the disease, and almost three-quarters of a million of us have died.

Join us and our partners in the #EndVaccineApartheid campaign in Times Square (the “Crossroads of the World”) on Tuesday evening, November 30th at 5:15 p.m., along the southern edge of the Duffy Sq. area (46th St.)  We’ll be gathering as the World Trade Organization (WTO) opens its 12th annual Ministerial meeting in Geneva, and joining in solidarity with thousands of everyday people holding events in cities worldwide.  Collectively, we will call-out shameful global vaccine apartheid that has been caused by WTO rules, and call for a new system of global vaccine justice instead.

Activities across the US will also call for US leadership to make this shift happen. We will remember the millions worldwide who have unnecessarily died from COVID-19 because of the WTO’s rigged system that protects the power and profits of international drug corporations over the health and lives of people.  The WTO’s skewed system also allows new viral variants to emerge that threaten all of us no matter where we live and regardless of our vaccination status.

How to join us on Tuesday evening, November 30th:

• Please RSVP here:  https://actionnetwork.org/events/global-day-of-action-for-vaccine-justice-nyc-solidarity-vigil?clear_id=true
• Please share this Facebook event:   https://www.facebook.com/events/995202804391521
• Feel free to use this toolkit:  https://docs.google.com/document/d/19db12x01m2TMlQCEE1WgFlvMC3X2KFTv6G74Ef8CB-4/edit#
• Co-sponsor sign-on form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1LpKLY4KOKZJ5ajXrEtgk-Z9D567fUCjBoOadk_rhcb8/edit

Sponsors [list in formation]:

• Citizens Trade Campaign/New York Trade Justice Campaign
• CPD Action
• Health GAP
• Housing Works
• Metro New York Health Care for All
• Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch
• Right to Health Action
• Rise and Resist

The WTO’s Ministerial will be one if its most important meetings in years given the crisis of the global COVID-19 pandemic. One of the top agenda items is a proposal from India and South Africa (and endorsed by over 130 nations) for the WTO to temporarily suspend its corporate-friendly system of international intellectual property rights so that millions more deaths can be prevented through mass vaccination and treatment programs worldwide. The Biden administration publicly stated its support for this waiver last spring, but has yet to do anything concrete to move it forward at the WTO. Many rich western countries in Europe oppose the waiver at the behest of industry forces, so active US leadership is essential.

More info on the Global Day of Action worldwide:

• ttps://rethinktrade.org/toolkit/wto-ministerial-global-call-to-action/

Good background on the WTO Ministerial:

• https://www.twn.my/title2/briefing_papers/MC12/briefings/WTO reform & WTO pandemic response TWNBP MC12.pdf

Since last spring, we are proud to have joined with various public health groups here in NYC and nationally to do our part as part of the larger #EndVaccineApartheid campaign. Once a month or so, we have undertaken a variety of events here in NYC in solidarity with others across the US and the globe. Our main focus has been to promote and advance a proposal from India, South Africa, and 120+ other countries for the WTO to grant a temporary waiver of international intellectual property rights for COVID-19 vaccines, treatments, and diagnostics so that they can be quickly mass produced and used to end the pandemic as soon as possible, and to prevent millions of unnecessary deaths and the emergence of new viral variants that threaten everyone everywhere.  

We also have been calling out the Big Pharma bad actors and profiteers such as our hometown bad boy Pfizer, and calling on the US to provide necessary leadership to make this waiver proposal come to fruition. While the Biden administration made a public statement of support last spring, they have done NOTHING yet to actually make it happen, and so industry forces and their political shills in Europe have been able to block any progress.

Good news! The House Majority has finally agreed upon a Build Back Better package, and is poised to vote on it when they return to Washington next week. It contains many good provisions that will help millions of everyday people and families who need health care, prescription drugs, child care, preschool, home care, paid leave and housing during the ongoing pandemic and economic recession, and will also invest in combating and mitigating climate change.

Rep. Kathleen Rice (NY-4, Nassau) has been ambivalent about the Build Back Better package all along, but she released a supportive statement last week that says she will vote for it provided there are no major substantive changes or any new financial analysis that indicates it to be out of balance.

We invite you to join us along with our partners at 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, the New York State Council of Churches, Long Island Federation of Labor, Long Island Progressive Coalition, and other groups for a sunset candlelight vigil and march to Rep. Rice’ district office in Garden City. It will take place tomorrow, Wednesday November 10^th, at 4 p.m.

We will be calling on Rep. Rice to keep her promise to support the Build Back Better package, and will share our own personal stories with each other about what the components of the package mean for ourselves, our families, and our communities.  We will gather in a small park located in Garden City on the traffic island at the corner of Franklin Ave. and Stewart Ave., and then walk over to her office nearby.

Here are online links to RSVP for our vigil and to share with others:

• Action Network
• Facebook
• Sponsor sign-up form

(FYI — Becoming a sponsor is not just nominal, but means that your group will promote the vigil to members and networks.)

We thank all these sponsor groups (to date):

• 1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East
• Consumer-Directed Personal Assistance Association of New York State
• Hand in Hand: The Domestic Employers Network
• Long Island Activists
• Long Island Federation of Labor
• Long Island Progressive Coalition
• New York Caring Majority
• New York State Alliance for Retired Americans
• New York State Council of Churches
• Our Revolution: New York Progressive Action Network
• Together We Will Long Island

This week, Congress is closing in on a final deal for the Build Back Better package.  One of THE most popular ideas on the table in these deliberations is directing Medicare to negotiate lower prescription drug prices for all of us, and then using those savings to expand Medicare to include coverage of dental, vision, and hearing services, something that has LONG been needed.

Current media reports are that this idea may either be set aside altogether, or replaced with meaningless ‘window dressing” that won’t lower drug prices much or provide robust benefits that people on Medicare desperately need. We cannot let either happen!

Now is the time that we need ALL of our health care champions in the House to weigh-in with Speaker Nancy Pelosi to demand that strong Rx drug price negotiation with Medicare expansion is included in the final Build Back Better package, and to reject any fake alternatives. Fortunately, the Congressional Progressive Caucus is leading the charge for us, and its NYC-area members include:

• Jamaal Bowman (NY-16, Bronx and Westchester) — 718-530-7710
• Yvette Clarke (NY-9, Brooklyn) — 718-287-1142
• Adriano Espaillat (NY-13, Manhattan and Bronx) — 212-663-3900
• Hakeem Jeffries (NY-8, Brooklyn) — 718-237-2211
• Mondaire Jones (NY-17, Rockland and Westchester) — 914-323-5550
• Carolyn Maloney (NY-12, Manhattan) — 212-860-0606
• Grace Meng (NY-6, Queens) — 718-445-7860
• Jerry Nadler (NY-10, Manhattan) — 212-367-7350
• Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14, Bronx and Queens) — 718-662-5970
• Ritchie Torres (NY-15, Bronx) — 718-503-9610
• Nydia Velazquez (NY-7, Brooklyn) — 718-599-3658

We urge you to contact these offices to thank them for their efforts and to urge them to keep fighting for Congress to “do the right thing.”

We also need our Sen. Charles Schumer to stay strong to do all he can as Majority Leader to reject phony reforms and achieve strong drug price negotiations and meaningful Medicare improvements. We know he is in support, and it’s important to let him know “we’ve got your back!” (212-486-4430) Ditto for Sen. Gillibrand (212-688-6262).

Finally, one of the few holdouts is Rep. Kathleen Rice (NY-4, Nassau) So far, she has opposed vigorous drug price negotiations and is instead pushing very weak measures. We urge people to contact her office by phone (516-739-3008) and social media (@RepKathleenRice) to urge that she fight for what everyday New Yorkers need instead of succumbing to industry pressure and supporting phony ideas.