Category: Social justice

Emergency rally demanding McKenna drop the health care lawsuit

By rachael_decruz | Published March 28, 2012

Tuesday morning, over one hundred small business owners, community members and health care providers held an emergency rally calling on AG Rob McKenna to drop the health care lawsuit. The rally was inspired by the story of Tessie Goheen, a 24-year old breast cancer survivor from Bremerton who delivered a letter yesterday to Attorney General Rob McKenna sharing her story.

Tessie was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 20, while she was studying for a degree in elementary education. Over the past three years, she’s had a bilateral mastectomy, chemotherapy and a total hysterectomy. Read her full story here in our recent blog post.

Tessie is currently cancer-free and working at a pre-school in Bremerton while finishing her degree. She takes daily medication and sees her oncologist regularly. It is critical that she has health insurance. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, she does.

On Monday, the US Supreme Court began to hear oral arguments on McKenna’s lawsuit to overturn the Affordable Care Act. In response, Tessie went to Attorney General McKenna’s office in Olympia to deliver a letter sharing her story of how the law has helped her and asking him to drop the lawsuit.

AG Rob McKenna often claims that his lawsuit simply seeks to challenge the constitutionality of specific provisions of the Affordable Care Act, but that it will not overturn popular provisions of health care reform, like new protections for people with pre-existing conditions or allowing young adults to stay on their parents’ health plan.

However, his lawsuit explicitly asks the court to strike down the entire law. McKenna’s lawsuit asks the court to “Declare the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, as amended, to be unconstitutional,” and the plaintiffs have stated, “neither the ACA’s Medicaid changes nor the Individual Mandate is severable from the other provisions of the ACA. The unconstitutionality of either requires that the Act be struck down in its entirety.”

Also posted in Events, Health Care | | 1 Comment

Overview of the Legislative Session

By rachael_decruz | Published March 21, 2012

A week and a half ago, the regular session of the Legislature ended. While the debate over the budget continues into the Special Session, we wanted to give you an update on what happened this session and point out some key victories.

As a grassroots advocacy organization, we show our power in multiple different ways. Whether it be through events at the Capitol, or generating calls, emails, or letters to legislators, we work with our members to make their voices heard. Due to the continued advocacy of our members, we had three crucial victories this session that deserve to be noted.

Victories:

Washington State passed strong legislation to continue implementing health care reform this session. With the passage of this legislation, Washington state is ahead of the curve in implementing health care reform so that it puts the needs of consumers and small businesses ahead of insurance companies. Many of our members provided testimonies about the importance of affordable health care options and the need for a system that works for all Washingtonians. As we move forward with health care reform implementation, we’ll need to continue raising awareness about the importance of a Basic Health Option, which provides our state an opportunity to expand Washington’s current Basic Health Plan with federal dollars. Click here for more info. about the Basic Health Option.
Our state also made big strides this year around access to dental care. A bill was brought to the Legislature that would increase access to routine and preventative dental care for adults and children in Washington. Although the bill didn’t make it through the Legislature, personal testimonies as well as emails and calls to legislators around the issue of dental access helped to pave the way for our fight next session
Due to continued pressure and an emphasis by the community on the importance of making everyone pay their fair share, House Republicans now publicly support closing the corporate tax loophole for out of state banks