Brothers and Sisters: As the United States is faced with the concern of the new Coronavirus known as COVID-19, I feel it is important to speak to this topic with all our UAW membership. I want to be very clear that we do not take this matter lightly. In detailing some important actions that our UAW is taking relative to the virus; I want to assure our brothers and sisters that we continue discussions daily to ensure the necessary steps are being taken to maintain a state of preparedness. In addition to focusing on preparedness, our leadership is asked to ...
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President Rory Gamble I’d like to begin this blog with a couple of comments about an issue that I feel very passionate about. In my more than 40 years with the UAW, I have had the benefit of very good health care coverage. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for so many Americans across this nation. Our national health care crisis is truly a disgrace and something we are compelled to remedy. When hard working men and women can’t afford to go to the doctor or are making decisions between buying food and filling life-saving prescriptions, we know something is ...
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UAW Commends Passage of Drug Bill to Lower Prescription Costs Today, the UAW commended the House of Representatives, led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, for passing the Elijah E. Cummings Lower Drug Costs Now Act (HR 3). This is a good day for our country, and it is long overdue. We proudly support HR 3 as it would lower the price of many high cost drugs, including insulin, which has nearly doubled in price from 2012-2016 despite being on the market for almost 100 years. UAW members, retirees and families are deeply concerned about the skyrocketing cost of prescription drugs and ...
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As president of the United Auto Workers (UAW), I recently joined dozens of organizations from across the country in a coordinated effort demanding that Congress and the Trump Administration develop strong, REAL reform to lower drug prices for patients and end Big Pharma’s price gouging. More than a dozen organizations — including the AFL-CIO, AFSCME, Alliance for Retired Americans, American Medical Student Association, the Center for Popular Democracy, Health Care for America Now, People’s Action, Public Citizen, Social Security Works, and many others — joined forces with us to make our voices heard, and be clear in our support of ...
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Pharmaceutical companies claim that the high price of prescription drugs is due in part to the need to fund innovative research for new drugs, but a new study found that the numbers simply don’t add up. Researchers compared the cost of the 20 most prescribed drugs and found that they cost an average of 59% more in the United States than in other developed countries. What does this mean? American consumers pay $116 billion more per year for the same prescription drugs as people in other countries who are—in theory—supposed to be helping fund that same innovative research. With pharmaceutical ...
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The U.S. Senate is scheduled to vote this week on a bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and end Medicaid as we know it. This mean-spirited bill, sponsored by Republican Senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, would radically change our health care system, leading to unaffordable care for millions of Americans. This bill would drastically cut coverage for seniors, children, veterans, and people with disabilities. Medicaid, the largest provider of long-term care for seniors in the country, would cease to exist as we know it in only nine years. If passed, this bill would end federal ...
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We‘ve been asking for your help a lot recently, but we need your help now more than ever to save UAW members’ and their families’ health care. Due to your activism, Republicans in the Senate have abandoned their efforts to replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA), and instead are voting to fully repeal the ACA with no replacement. The consequences will be dire for all UAW members and their families. Call 1-313-528-6780 NOW to tell your Senator to vote NO on ACA Repeal! Non-Partisan experts have concluded that 32 million Americans will lose health care due to this bill, with ...
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After the July 4th recess, the Senate is set to vote on a health care bill which strips insurance from 22 million Americans, guts protections for those with preexisting conditions, and brings back lifetime caps on care. Put simply, this bill is a threat to UAW members, UAW retirees, and UAW families. Please take action today — call your Senator at 1-313-528-6780. This bill is terrible for millions of Americans, is opposed by many Democrats and Republicans alike, but it is particularly bad for UAW members in a few ways. The bill: Cuts Medicaid by over $800 billion which could hurt ...
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May 6 is National Nurses Day, the perfect time to celebrate our UAW nurses throughout the country and raise awareness about the importance of nursing. This week, Local 2213 in UAW Region 2B sponsored a conference and rally in Washington, D.C. called “Nurses Take DC” which brought together 400 union and non-union nurses to discuss various topics affecting the nursing profession including patient safety, limited resources, ineffective management, and staffing ratios. Nursing has become a target of escalating, corporate-driven cutbacks across America. U.S. hospitals are devaluing the vital importance of nurses because, unlike some other hospital employees, the services nurses ...
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President Trump says the revised House GOP health care bill would protect people with pre-existing conditions, but a multitude of experts and advocates beg to differ. The latest change to the bill, called the MacArthur amendment after its author, Republican House member Tom MacArthur, would allow states to opt out of several key Obamacare insurance regulations. Read more on money.cnn.com >>> Photo by Calleamanecer (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons