Consumers! Mind Health Care for All Please
Cost Control is on the Senate Agenda tomorrow and Thursday. The place will be crawling with “Special Interest Groups” like ours — meaning Health Care for All. They have done the research, they have found amendment sponsors, now they are asking us all to get to work and call our own Senators. So do...
House Vs. Senate Health Reform Plans: Let The Comparison Shopping Begin
Plain talk is what we civilians need here, and WBUR’s CommonHealth’s blog called Reform and Reality gets off to an excellent start with this entry. The Massachusetts House released its plan for cutting health costs on Friday. The Senate isreleasing its own plan today. And now begins the public “compare and contrast” period, the ingathering of input...
Senior Citizens Disrupt Massachusetts Legislative Session
Best Chant to be seen in a video embedded in this article by State House News Service was “Today we March Tomorrow We Vote!” While most of the media led their stories with the protest around rising fares and reduced services at the MBTA, the State House News gave a few more details including the...
The EBT Debate – the Video
This 35 minute debate was preceded by hours and hours of negotiations between Legislators who filed amendments to severely restrict the use of EBT Cards by welfare recipients to prevent fraud and Legislators who were concerned that the proposed solutions were unenforceable and threatened small businesses and certain professional services — carefully itemized on a 16...
History and Legacy of the Welfare Rights Movement Videos
And here is Claradine Cowell, a Leader in the Massachusetts Welfare Rights Movement telling her story. She is introduced by Lee Staples, a former organizer for Mass Welfare rights.
Budget Debate Process — Nobody said it was going to be easy.
It was a lousy process for fans of transparency who long for the time we had 10 full days (and nights) of televised debate one line item at a time. Never mind there were huddles of legislators in the corners of the Chamber or (gasp) behind closed doors developing arguments and and counting votes in relative...
Tired of WonkTalk about RomneyCare? Woops! ObamaCare?
Health reform advocates have a really hard time talking plain English. So, from HCFA’s resident wiseguy, I mean really smart guy, Ari Fertig…
A Compelling Alert — Another Front on the War on Women? .
from Mass Law Reform and the Coalition for the Homeless The House Waysand Means Budget Would Erode the Shelter Safety Net for Homeless Children with Nowhere Else to Go! Support Rep. Wolf and Rushing’s Amendment #603 to Ensure Homeless Children Are Not Left on the Streets! For more information, contact the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute 617-357-0700 (Ruth...
Budget Amendments What’s Next #2 Leaving No Stone Unturned.
Leave no stone unturned. You’ve got through the weekend to contact Reps and ask them to get down to the Clerk’s office, sign up as cosponsors and send a little note to the Speaker and Chair of Ways and Means telling them they support your amendment. On Monday and Tuesday and throughout the week, savvy...
From Freedom House to Present Day, Parents on the March: June 19
The Academy’s Organizing for Change series continues in June with a powerful presentation that will inspire and support today’s parents and organizers who are standing up for quality education in Boston. Join some of the local leaders who worked with Otto and Muriel Snowden, founders of the Freedom House in the 50’s and 60’s, and parents who are...
What House Leadership is Doing on April Vacation Week & CW Mag’s Study
They are poring over the amendments to the House Ways and Means Budget that’s what they’re doing. Thanks to the Globe for this nice picture of Speaker Bob DeLeo and Chairman of HW&M Brian Dempsey doing the poring. A very well researched article in Commonwealth Magazine documents the so called “drop off ” in legislative...
Post – Clinton’s Welfare “Reform” It’s getting worser and worser.
Last week this article on the lack of support for the poor during this recession “My take on it was the states would push people off and not let them back on, and that’s just what they did,’’ said Peter B. Edelman, a law professor at Georgetown University who resigned from the Clinton administration to...
