That means there’s no better time to get the word out that Cervical Cancer Prevention Works! Although cervical cancer is preventable, approximately 11,150 women in the U.S. will be diagnosed with the disease in 2007 and 3,670 of them will die.

The Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW) is taking action with Cervical Cancer Prevention Works, a program that empowers union women with the information they need to prevent this deadly disease.

Learn the facts and take action! Visit CLUW’s website for more information. Also, check out Tamika and Friends, an organization started by AFSCME member and cervical cancer survivor Tamika Felder to raise awareness about prevention.

Iraq War veteran and AFSCME member David Watchous talks to reporters about the need to fully fund veteran provisions in the labor-HHS funding bill. Watchous is a corrections officer at the Topeka Corrections Facility in Topeka, KS.

Congress has a lot on its plate now that it’s back in session. And one of the most important priorities for AFSCME members is a bill that funds the departments of Labor, Health and Human Services and Education – or the Labor-HHS bill.

For months, AFSCME and partner organizations, through the Emergency Campaign for America’s Priorities, have been putting pressure on Members of Congress to pass this bill. It would begin to reinvest our tax dollars in vital services for regular Americans – things like child care, education and job training. In July, the House overwhelmingly passed the bill – despite a threat from President Bush to veto it.

The bill also provides funding for homelessness prevention and mental health services for American veterans. And that’s why AFSCME veterans have been coming out in full force across the country calling on their senators to follow the House’s lead.

Click these links for a small sample of press coverage from our events in Indiana, Oregon and Kansas:

• Indiana Veterans Calling for Lugar’s Support (WISH-TV)
• Indiana Vets Call for More Health Care for Soldiers
(WTHR-TV)
• Vets Call on Senator Smith (1190 KEX-AM)
• Military Suicide Rate Highest in 26 Years… Vets Urge Support (WIBW-TV)
• Vietnam Veterans Urge Senators to Pass Mental Health Funding (KBSD-TV)

Naysayers may want to look the other way, but reality speaks for itself.

According to the latest Census Bureau report on income, poverty and health insurance coverage, the number of Americans without health insurance rose last year from 44.5 million to 47 million. That’s almost 16 percent of Americans who simply can’t get sick enough to require a doctor visit… because they can’t afford it.

And what about children? More than 600,000 of them joined the ranks of the uninsured in 2006. They have now reached 8.7 million. At a time when Pres. Bush threatens to veto reauthorization of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, this is particularly dire news.

Meanwhile, the official poverty rate decreased slightly from 12.6 percent in 2005 to 12.3 percent last year. Nonetheless, that’s still nearly 37 million Americans living in poverty or 5 million more than when Pres. Bush moved into the White House.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D) said it best: “While the poverty rate is down slightly, millions of Americans feel the American Dream is getting further out of reach. Today’s Census data confirms these fears. Americans are working harder but living paycheck to paycheck, struggling to make ends meet and going deeper into debt because of the high cost of health care, energy, and education.”

A lot. That’s the only conclusion anyone with a pulse could reach when watching Steve Skvara, a disabled, retired steel worker from Indiana, pose a question to the candidates at last night’s AFL-CIO presidential forum.

Skvara drew huge applause and a standing ovation after his moving description of how, after working for decades at LTV Steel, the company cut his pension by one-third and abolished his health care coverage. Skvara emotionally described being unable to pay for health care coverage for his wife who had devoted her life to him and their family. His question for the candidates?

What’s wrong with America, and what will you do to change it?

See Steve ask his question:

Read more at the AFL-CIO’s blog.

We did it! The House approved expanding heath care for children and protecting Medicare for seniors!

In the last two weeks, nearly 10,000 AFSCME members called and emailed Congress urging them to expand health care for children and protect Medicare for seniors.

They listened. Last night, the U.S. House passed the Children’s Health and Medicare Protection (CHAMP) Act of 2007, 225-204.

CHAMP will insure millions of poor children in America. The House bill will also scale back the so-called Medicare Advantage program, a scheme to privatize Medicare.

According to today’s New York Times: “Over angry Republican objections, the House on Wednesday passed a sweeping expansion of the Children’s Health Insurance Program, financed with increases in tobacco taxes and cuts in subsidies to private Medicare insurance plans for older Americans. The bill embodies the Democrats’ vision for health care, taking a step toward the goal of universal coverage while reversing what they see as Republican efforts to ‘privatize Medicare’.”

These votes are proof that when AFSCME members fight, we win. Unfortunately, our work is not yet done. George Bush says he will oppose providing more kids in need with the health insurance coverage they deserve.

In a spot-on column in yesterday’s New York Times [subscription only], columnist Paul Krugman examines George W. Bush’s insidious strategy to prove that government does no good by having it do no good. In discussing Bush’s opposition to increasing funding for SCHIP, a popular and hugely successful program that provides access to health care to children in need, Krugman writes:

Now, why should Mr. Bush fear that insuring uninsured children would lead to a further ‘federalization’ of health care, even though nothing like that is actually in either the Senate plan or the House plan? It’s not because he thinks the plans wouldn’t work. It’s because he’s afraid that they would. That is, he fears that voters, having seen how the government can help children, would ask why it can’t do the same for adults.

In his blog, Matt Yglesias calls this Can’t Do Conservatism, and points out that, “Unfortunately, the public opinion data does tend to suggest that Bush’s staggering achievements in the field of maladministration have, in fact, boosted public skepticism of government capacity to do anything at all to some extent.”

Crooks and Liars adds: “So much for compassionate conservatism.”

Read more on The Carpetbagger Report.

Joe Sudbay at AMERICAblog has this to say about Bush’s opposition to health care for our nation’s kids:

George Bush doesn’t take care of wounded soldiers who he sent to war, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that he’s not worried about the health of America’s kids. Okay, it shouldn’t be a surprise, but somehow it is. Bush is even being lobbied by hard core Republican Senators Grassley and Hatch to support the SCHIP bill, but he won’t.

Read the rest of the post at AMERICAblog.

Just when we think a president with 28% approval ratings couldn’t get less support from the public, Bush has found a way to reach new lows. He is threatening to veto reauthorization of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), a program to provide health insurance coverage to low- and middle-income children that enjoys broad bipartisan support. As the New Republic reports, this is not the first time he has short-changed SCHIP.

With 9 million children in the U.S. lacking health insurance, SCHIP reauthorization is a vital step toward closing the coverage gap. But the Bush White House doesn’t like the fact that some governors (both Democrat and Republican) have expanded their programs to cover not just kids at the poverty limit, but their working parents as well. This is merely a reflection of how spiraling health care costs have made insurance coverage unaffordable for millions of working families. And that’s an Inconvenient Truth that this SICKO administration would prefer to ignore.

To working families, it’s just plain common sense: Shifting the cost of health benefits to employees is making healthcare increasingly unaffordable.

A recent study on workers with rheumatoid arthritis shows what we’ve known all of the time: In the face of skyrocketing out-of-pocket expenses, many employees forgo vital medication. Not only that, but according to this article from The New York Times, lost productivity causes employers to spend more, too.

If companies aren’t persuaded by the notion that it’s a matter of simple justice for every American to be able to go to the doctor when they need to without going broke, then maybe employers’ own self interest will make them accept that affordable healthcare is good business.

It’s clear that our current system poses a grave threat to the economic security of workers. That’s why AFSCME is helping to lead the fight to address this crisis. Affordable, quality health care for all – regardless of job, income or zip code – is a basic human right that must be achieved.

A new Centers for Disease Control (CDC) report shows the number of Americans without health insurance jumped 6 percent in 2006 from the previous year. Particularly alarming is that the increase was in the non-elderly adult population. According to news reports, this is because of diminishing employer coverage and pricier private insurance. The number of children without health insurance also increased to 6.8 million.

Abomination. Shameful. Outrageous. Take your pick.

One other note: President Bush’s home state of TX had the highest rate of uninsured (23.8%).