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Healthcare Reform - Senator Merkley Calls for Action

As President Obama prepared to host a bipartisan healthcare summit, Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley sent out an email to his supporters stating that "After a year of distortions, debate, and delay, I hope that Congress will finally focus on what really matters: giving every American family access to affordable health care."

Admitting that the Senate healthcare bill was flawed, Merkley said that it should be passed, with some aspects of the House bill like a public option added back in, through the reconciliation process if necessary.

As Senator Merkley points out, reconciliation has been used many times before to make sure necessary healthcare reforms are passed - reforms we take for granted today like COBRA and Medicare Advantage.

So thank you, Senator, for standing up for the reforms Oregonians need; for standing up for the changes the American people have been calling for; and for being willing to point out that there is a process ready and available that can be used to pass real healthcare reform, if only more of our elected officials would stand up and call for action.

In Other News...

Senate Jobs Bill A Good First Step

Senator Reid's scaled-back jobs bill that passed the Senate is a good step forward in getting our economy back on its feet. But it's not enough.

As commentators praised the Senate for passing this bill, union leaders across the country, and many others who have been calling for more help to get people back to work, were left wondering why more hasn't been done. As AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka pointed out, we need to create 10 million jobs to replace the jobs lost during the recession and the jobs that would have been created for new workers if our economy wasn't in a recession.

We hope the high-end estimates that the new Senate bill could create just over a million of those jobs are correct. But even if that's the case Congress needs to step up their actions and make sure that real jobs that pay a good wage are available, that small businesses that want to hire can take out loans to afford to expand, and that unemployed workers can get by until then.

New Healthcare Workers Committee Holds First Meeting

The Oregon AFL-CIO's newest committee is bringing together representatives from various affiliate unions whose members work in healthcare fields.

"Union members in Oregon work as RNs, paramedics, 911 operators and other emergency and medical support positions, and everything in between. Their unions regularly work to improve their professions and their working conditions, but we have never all sat down together to talk about what medical professionals across Oregon need. We are glad that discussion is finally getting started," said Tom Chamberlain, as he welcomed participants to the meeting.

Today the group began discussions about what they see as the top concerns in each of their professions, and started to brainstorm areas where they see the committee getting involved in the future. They hope to be able to make recommendations to the Oregon AFL-CIO board in time for their legislative planning meeting this summer.