Vermont Workers' Center Fighting for Workers' Rights!

The Healthcare Is a Human Right Campaign, a project of the Vermont Workers’ Center (VWC), aims to change what is "politically possible" in the healthcare debate through grassroots organizing and a strategic reframing of healthcare as a basic human right and the healthcare crisis as a human rights emergency.

Our Goals

Our long-term goal is a universal system in which healthcare is recognized as a public good and provided collectively, rather than as a commodity sold in a marketplace, and where the human right to health of all residents of the state is fully recognized, regardless of race, gender or gender identity, ability, sexual orientation, nationality or immigration status. Financing must be based on principles of universality, equity, and social solidarity, such as a single-payer system.

Our Principles

1. Every person is entitled to comprehensive, quality healthcare.
2. Systemic barriers must not prevent people from accessing necessary healthcare.
3. The cost of financing the healthcare system must be shared equitably.
4. The healthcare system must be transparent in design, efficient in operation and accountable to the people its serves.
5. As a human right, the healthcare system that satisfies these principles is the responsibility of the government to ensure.

Over 100 Organizations and Businesses have already endorsed these principles and the Healthcare is a Human Right Campaign. View a list of organizations endorsing "Healthcare is a Human Right".

With your help, we can make history in 2010. Healthcare is the civil rights movement of our time. Since launching our Healthcare is a Human Right Campaign in the winter of 2008, we have discovered that Vermonters refuse to stand by as the human rights of her people continue to be violated by a system that profits off the pain of others. We know that Vermont is ready to lead the nation in this historic fight, now we need your help to make good on this potential.

What We've Done Since we began the campaign just a year and a half ago we have:

▶ surveyed over 1500 Vermonters about their beliefs about healthcare and experiences with the healthcare system, finding that over 95% believe that Healthcare is a Human Right;

▶ Based on the surveys and hearings, we have put together a report and video Voices of the Vermont Healthcare Crisis: The Human Right to Healthcare.

▶ Held “Human Rights Hearings,” attended by over 700 Vermonters, in seven locations statewide;

▶ Organized the largest (1200+) weekday rally at the statehouse on May 1st, 2009;

▶ Built organizing committees in the majority of Vermont's counties;

▶ Mobilized hundreds to confront right wing protesters at Congressional town hall meetings more here: http://www.workerscenter.org/node/117

▶ Held a series of “People's Forums on Healthcare" in ten counties as accountability sessions with seventy state legislators and hundreds of Vermonters

▶ On October 8 the campaign was endorsed in editorials by two of Vermont's three largest newspapers, the Pulitzer Prize Winning Rutland Herald and Times Argus, read here: http://www.workerscenter.org/node/138

▶ Met with Sen. Doug Racine, Chair of the Senate Health & Welfare Committee, and Vermont nursing leaders gaining his commitment to holding hearings on our bills. See more here: http://www.workerscenter.org/node/145

▶ Released an updated report on December 10, International Human Rights Day, detailing how Vermont can lead the way in our country to realize the human right to healthcare;

▶ Delivered over 4,000 postcards to the statehouse on January 6, showing the widespread support for making healthcare a human right. Click here to read the press release.

2010 Legislative Session: The only legislation that has been introduced into the Vermont State Legislature for the 2009-2010 session that meets these standards are H.100 and S.88. (Links are to .pdf files of each bill, check out a summary here: http://www.workerscenter.org/node/168.) A January 12 statehouse hearing on the two bills gave almost a hundred Vermonters the opportunity to testify to our legislators on the importance of making healthcare a human right. While previous attempts at single payer legislation failed to get out of committee, our ability to mobilize thousands of Vermonters in every part of the state will make this an issue that cannot avoided. And Vermont can no longer wait, as the exploding costs of healthcare are at the heart of all of the budget crisis our state is facing.

While the incumbent Republican governor is almost certain to veto the legislation, the Democrats twice overrode a veto in the 2009, making it possible for our members to demand another veto from their elected representatives on the Human Right to Healthcare. It is not going to be easy, but with our ever-broadening base of active members we will be connecting legislators with hundreds of their constituents who believe in this needed shift. We intend to progress as far as possible with HCisHR during the upcoming legislative session, while building a movement with the power to continue the fight for the Human Right to Heathcare into the 2010 elections and beyond.

Help Us Build This Movement and Join Us at the Statehouse on May 1st for the Largest Rally in Vermont State History. If you would like to learn more or get involved in this grassroots movement, give testimony at the hearing, contact us at info@workerscenter.org, or (802) 861-4892.

You can contribute your healthcare story using our on-line form, "Tell Your Story".

This campaign is supported by the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative and we work in collaboration with Vermont Citizens Campaign For Health and Vermont For Single Payer.

Download the "Organizer's Toolkit":