In the months ahead, SMWC will be doing tabling and presentations across six counties at Unitarian Universalist churches, fairs, and, in collaboration with the Maine State Nurses Association, at free clinics. The HCHR campaign has written up its campaign story to explain where the campaign has come from and where it’s going, and it is holding trainings on SMWC’s health care survey as a tool to facilitate conversations about health care and to collect data on people’s experience in and opinions on the health care system. The campaign is pushing to gather 1,000 surveys between now and February 2016.

SMWC and its partners in the Maine HCHR coalition are operating in a difficult political environment after the reelection of conservative Governor Paul LePage in November. The Governor continues to block Medicaid expansion, which is personally affecting many of SMWC’s members and threatening the survival of community health clinics, and he is also attacking Portland’s General Assistance program and shelter system, which support residents in meeting their most fundamental needs. SMWC has responded with a powerful statement that challenges the Governor’s racist and xenophobic austerity narrative by pointing out that Maine has sufficient money for its public budget, but has failed to make budget decisions based on human needs.

Maryland

Healthcare Is a Human Right – Maryland has spent the winter assessing its core capacities and the political terrain in Maryland, and is developing strategies for the next phase of the campaign, with the continued goal of growing a movement that unites Maryland’s residents across color lines. The campaign is considering actions against the privatization of Medicaid in the state and has been working with allies on a campaign for statewide paid sick leave.

Pennsylvania

Put People First! PA has formally adopted a medium-term campaign focusing on public health, as part of its long-term Healthcare Is a Human Right Campaign. A human rights crisis has been unfolding in Southwestern PA just 20 miles south of where PPF-PA co-founder Nijmie Dzurinko grew up. A coal ash dump in LaBelle is poisoning the 300-member community as well as the 2,600 inmates and workers at State Correctional Institution Fayette, where all of the license plates in the Commonwealth are produced. PPF-PA will be organizing the families of incarcerated people who live in Southeast PA into one or more organizing committees of PPF, where they will become part of the Healthcare Is a Human Right Campaign while also building power to demand a special audit of the situation at the prison. Additionally, PPF-PA will support the organizing of LaBelle residents, and work to bring these communities together, along with the prison guards. PPF will work in collaboration with the Center for Coalfield Justice and the Human Rights Coalition.

Over the coming months, PPF-PA members will be starting to meet with legislators and develop a policy vision for the HCHR campaign, drawing on knowledge and support from allies. PPF-PA teams will also be developing an internal and external program of political education and leadership development to equip leaders and community members with skills to address and stand up against systemic oppression on the basis of race, immigration status, and gender, while uniting diverse communities. This program is being developed with PPF member and professor Jamie Longazel,with leadership from the Political Education Team and the University of the Poor and with support from NESRI.

PPF-PA is also welcoming Sheila Quintana as its new Southeast PA Field Organizer. Sheila is deeply rooted in immigrant communities and has been an organizer with DreamActivist PA and the Fight for Drivers Licenses. Her work has focused on stopping deportations and claiming and expanding the rights of immigrants through education, advocacy and direct action. She’s very excited to expand her circle of concern to include diverse PA communities across Philadelphia, Bucks, Montgomery, Chester and Delaware Counties. Sheila replaces outgoing organizer Alia Trindle, who built a strong base for PPF in Southeast Pennsylvania and helped grow and shape PPF and the HCHR campaign in 2014.

News from allies:

North Carolina

Forward Together / Moral Mondays held its 2015 Moral March on Raleigh on February 14. PPF-PA member Dan Jones joined the march and reflected, “This kind of moral movement demands a basic transformation of the priorities of our society. It demands that we put people first and hold up human rights and the sacredness of human life above everything else. I see Put People People First! PA and many others building this kind of movement in PA, and I’m heartened and encouraged by the example in North Carolina.”

On March 23, Forward Together/Moral Mondays’ People’s Grand Jury handed down their indictment of North Carolina’s elected leaders for failing to protect the health of the people of North Carolina by blocking Medicaid expansion. The People’s Grand Jury heard testimony in February and March; videos of both hearings are available online.

Texas

Nuestra Texas held a human rights march and tribunal in Brownsville, Texas, on International Women’s Day. Some 200 people marched in pouring rain demanding “salud, dignidad y justicia” (health, dignity and justice). The march led to a community event where leaders spoke about the acute women’s health crisis in Texas after the legislature closed down Planned Parenthood clinics in the state. Cathy Albisa from NESRI attended the events.

The primary health care system for women in Texas has been devastated. The State’s policies have block residents who are not citizens, whether documented or undocumented, from insurance coverage and access to affordable care. Even citizens with insurance have difficulty accessing care because there are simply not enough providers after the clinics closed down. And women without documentation who live near the border often cannot get care because they cannot travel through internal immigration check points within Texas in order to get to one of the few remaining clinics.

Cancer appears to be common in the region. At the tribunal, women testified that they were living with tumors in their breasts or uterus but had no way of knowing if they were life threatening because they could not get diagnosed. Mothers stated that their biggest fear was not knowing whether they were dying and leaving their children behind. Stories were shared of women who got sick and died without ever receiving care, and children being sent into foster care. Women with four or five children spoke about their unmet need for family planning, knowing they could not afford to feed another child. All of these leaders testified powerfully about the intersection of poverty, immigration status, gender and access to care. They provided clear and compelling analysis about the human rights violations they were suffering. Despite the genuine horrors shared, the sense of unity and hope was overpowering. All the members of Nuestra Texas eloquently called for a human rights solution, for building community power and for working in solidarity with a broader movement. The women call themselves “las poderas” (the powerful ones), and indeed they are.

For more information, visit www.nuestrotexas.org (also available in Spanish) and read a 2013 report from the Center for Reproductive Rights and the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health (English | Spanish).

Oregon

On February 11, some 1,200 people rallied and met with legislators at the Oregon State Capitol in Salem. The event was organized by the Health Care for All – Oregon coalition in support of two bills that it is pushing in the State Legislature. The Health Care for All Oregon Act would establish universal, publicly financed health care in Oregon; and the second bill, HB2828, would commit the state to fully funding a study of possible health care systems for Oregon. HCAO is also considering whether to take up a ballot measure to commit the state to treating health care as a human right.

New York

On May 5, people in New York will hold a rally and lobby day at the Capitol in Albany to support the New York Health Act, a bill to create a universal, publicly financed health care system in the state. The bill, according to a new study by economist Gerald Friedman for the Campaign for New York Health, would save 14,000 lives by expanding access to health care, and yet would cost families, businesses, and the public $45 million less than maintaining the existing market-based insurance system.

Poor People’s Campaign

VWC, PPF, SMWC, and United Workers (which anchors HCHR-MD) have endorsed the call for a new Poor People’s Campaign. The new campaign follows from Dr. Martin Luther King’s original Poor People’s Campaign, and, in its first phase, is bringing together organizations led by poor people to advance human dignity and human rights.