The battle to make college more affordable has come down to a critical few weeks in the Senate. The banks and student loan companies already have spent millions of dollars on lobbying, PR firms, and advertisements in their attempt to stop reform and hang on to wasteful government subsidies. This would mean $87 billion less for programs to make college more affordable and accessible.
Now Campus Progress is taking action. We’ve raised money to put this :30 second spot on cable TV and on Hulu in key states across the country:
We don’t have the kind of money student loan companies have, so we’re going to need your help spreading the ad on Facebook, Twitter, and email if we’re going to get the word out. Click here to help us spread the word.
This Wednesday at 11am, the UC Regents will convene at UCLA to vote on fee hikes. This vote will determine whether or not UC students, which account for nearly 220,000 students in California, will face a 15% increase in tuition this year.
While decisions about college affordability have impacted the lives of students across the country, students in California are hit particularly hard with the current deficit looming over the state. The vote to take place on Wednesday to raise student fees is a result of the state budget crisis, which has left the UC with a shortfall of $982.2 million in the last two years. As the state continues to cut funding from the UC system, the UC Regents have proposed raising fees year after year to subsidize those cuts. For the 2009-2010 year, they have proposed an overall 30% increase, which would put tuition over $10,000 for the first time.
There is a state-wide call to action to defend public education in California. As of now, an estimated 600 students from the UC system plan on arriving at UCLA Wednesday morning to join in solidarity and to tell the UC Regents that this proposal is unacceptable.
The push for health care reform is moving fast and furiously, so I thought it’d be helpful to have semi-daily “Health on the Hill” updates that should help you keep track of the reform debate and get to the meat of the issue. Enjoy!
Today’s Updates – 11/6/09:
The House of Representatives is scheduled to begin debate on their health care bill, The Affordable Health Care for America Act – H.R. 3962, this weekend. The final House legislation was released a couple weeks ago and is now ready to be voted on by our Representatives. However, as has been the case throughout this entire health care reform process, there may be some delays that would push the vote back to Monday or Tuesday — “some delays” meaning: more discussions about abortion and immigration to stall the way-bigger-than-those-two-issues health care bill.
This bill, which — among many other things — will contain costs, end discrimination based on pre-existing conditions or gender, extend coverage for young adults under their parents’ plan, and provide a public insurance plan that will compete with private plans, has not included language about keeping illegal immigrants from buying insurance in the new insurance marketplace, and this one omission is bothering many Representatives. However the bill does state that illegal immigrants will not be eligible to receive federal subsidies to purchase insurance. So even though the bill requires illegal immigrants to buy insurance or be fined with a penalty tax, it is not going to help them purchase it. Awesome — makes perfect sense.
Another reform deal-breaker for many Reps is abortion, and although the House bill clearly states that federal funds given out under reform will not be used to cover abortion, this language isn’t good enough for some and they are fighting to include amendments that strengthen the prohibition for abortion funds. Why abortion cannot be covered like any other medical procedure we have a right to is beyond me, but my opinion, and that of millions of others, is apparently neither here nor there in this debate.
Another topic of discussion that is sure to be included in tomorrow’s debate is the GOP’s alternative health care bill. Or, what I like to call, a plan only insurance companies could love, or the bill that will leave 52 million people uninsured and actually charge more for people with pre-existing conditions. Way to go guys. Luckily, the Republican bill has no chance of passing, but they had to produce something since all they were doing all these months was saying “no” to the other bills on the table.
So this is it. After the GOP bill gets laughed off of the stage and immigrants and abortion likely barred from being covered, the House will vote to pass their first piece of health care reform legislation. But while they decide their vote they have to hear from you. Especially after hearing from anti-reform crowds led by our favorite Rep. Bachmann yesterday.
A man at the Bachmann protest yesterday holds this sign –which doesn’t even make any sense.
It’s your turn to make your voice heard: Contact your Rep NOW and urge them to pass the House Health Care bill, H.R. 3962!
This week, climate activists from Washington University organized a flash mob at a coal funded “America’s Energy Future” forum. Check out the video of their extremely successful action:
At the forum there was no representation from clean energy industries and most of the panelists came from coal corporations that recently joined the board of the St. Louis Missouri university. This is what the student activists had to say:
Students wish to highlight the close relationship between the university administration and the coal industry. Students have already expressed unease that the University is “too cozy” with coal… The University has dedicated $60 million in financial resources to the creation of a Consortium for Clean Coal Utilization. The name of this consortium has sparked controversy among many students and faculty, who have argued that the industry term “clean coal” has no place in scientific research.
The students also highlighted a new report released by the National Academy of Sciences that calculated the hidden costs of coal consumptions to be over $60 billion dollars per year in health, environmental, and social costs and a report by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance demonstrating that Missouri could meet its energy needs entirely through renewable energy.
But it doesn’t end there! Newsweek and the American Petroleum Institute recently partnered to launch their own forums on clean energy, despite API’s continued efforts to undermine climate legislation and deceive the general public. Petroleum companies have much to gain from the ‘clean coal’ insanity due to their expertise in drilling and their extensive pipeline infrastructure. Unfortunately, the rest of the world doesn’t as Carbon Capture and Sequestration is an untested technology with no proven record and that is expected to be extremely expensive to implement even if possible.
Newsweek’s journalistic integrity is at stake when they partner with organizations who’s whole purpose is to push disinformation and halt honest conversations about the energy future of the United States. I have crashed a Newsweek energy event already and I was the only young person in the audience. We will be present and numerous at these forums, possibly borrowing some tactics by the young climate activists at Washington University.
One year ago, my generation -adults ages 18-34 – saturated the voting polls across the country, casting their votes in record numbers with hope that things could change.
One year later, Congress is making progress on several of the issues that weighed on our minds as we stood in line to vote; one of them being health care, which is close to having a piece of legislation aimed at resolving our broken system.
On November 4th, Campus Progress and a coalition of 20 youth organizations that form the Y.I. Want Change Coalition, hosted a national day of action called Y.I. (Still) Want Change. This day marked the anniversary of last year’s historic election and made a strong, collective demand for comprehensive health care reform in events across the country.
Young people gathered in more than 20 states to participate in 44 events (representing our 44th President), including states such as Connecticut, Massachusetts and Montana – states represented by Senators that have a big stake in the health care debate. These events ranged from film screenings, to photo petition drives, to phonebanks and rallies.
Y.I. Still Want Change also engaged thousands of young health care reform supporters on Facebook, where they signed a photo petition demanding reform from Congress.
You can still participate in the Y.I. Want Change petition now by signing the photo petition on Facebook and changing your status to read:
Health care reform is one of the most pressing issues facing our country, yet there has been little discussion about the health care needs of young adults. Young people make up one third of the uninsured, but our voices are not being heard in the health care debate. November 4th’s national day of action had a mission to change that.
As Erica Williams, our Deputy Director here at Campus Progress, has said, “Young people have fought for months to make our voices heard in this debate. At this critical moment, on campuses and in communities across the country, we are showing our leaders that we are engaged and ready to hold them accountable for delivering real, comprehensive, health care reform.”
In addition to calling attention to young Americans’ health care needs, the Y.I. Want Change coalition supports a set of policy priorities to ensure that health care reform addresses those needs. The coalition formally announced these policy priorities at a press conference with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi a few weeks ago.
Some of these policies include removing the “Young Invincibles” plan – the catastrophic insurance plan written into the Senate Finance Committee’s bill- from legislation, extending coverage under your parents’ insurance plan until age 26, and securing funding to educate young adults on the benefits of their new health care system after reform.
As I mentioned in a previous post, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu is an energy efficiency geek and that’s why he is loved by anyone that has a rational view on energy policy.
Today he gave us efficiency geeks another reason to gloat by writing a fantastic piece on HuffingtonPost explaining in plain words the importance of home weatherization (or ”saving money by saving energy” as he likes to say) and outlining new federal programs to help average Americans cope with the high upfront cost that comes with reducing residential energy use.
Just like Berkeley’s fantastic solar initiative, the new Department of Energy plan will make low-interest loans available for people investing in efficiency improvements in their homes. The loan will be tied to your property taxes and therefore stay with the house.
The homeowners might pay an extra $400 per year on their property tax bill but save $500 a year on their utility bill. Since the financing would be attached to the property tax bill, both the savings and the loan payments stay with the house if the owners decide to sell.
These are the type of programs that will make sustainability improvements accessible to everyday Americans and that result in saving people money, reducing harmful carbon pollution, cleaning up our air, and creating millions of new jobs.
Unfortunately, all the programs announced by the Secretary of Energy are backed by a token sum that isn’t nearly enough to rapidly and effectively reduce our emissions at the levels they need to be.
What time did you wake up yesterday morning? I woke up at 5:00 a.m. to go down to the Dirksen Senate Office Building and attend the first hearing for the new climate bill. The bill, co-sponsored by Senator Kerry (D-MA) and Senator Boxer (D-CA), is called the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act — aka CEJAPA and is similar in many ways to the recently passed American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) in the House.
Along with other 10 young people, dressed in Halloween garbs or green t-shirts , we tried to get into the hearing room to show that young people are paying attention and are ready to hold our elected officials accountable. Unfortunately, due to corporate hired linestanders, we weren’t able to get in. Linestanders you ask? Yup, here is how it works:
Hearing rooms are small, especially considering that most seats go to Senate staffers (from offices of Senators who aren’t on the committee) and press. Most hearings are held with barely any ordinary citizen in the room, but some contentious ones — like recent healthcare, defense and climate hearings – fill up pretty quick. The few spots left are open on a first-come, first-serve basis meaning that people need to make sure to get there early if they care to have a seat in clear view of the senators and the CSPAN cameras.
Just like young people desperately want legislators to see them (and we make sure they do by wearing bright green t-shirts, holding hard hats on our laps, and holding small 8.5 x 11 signs), so do the lobbyists that bring so much money to their election coffers. Thirteen line-standers for corporate lobbyists were in line ahead of us, but there were only nine seats were available in the room so we weren’t successful this time around. Young people waiting in line made a pretty big splash nonetheless by talking to Senators and press as they were making their way into the room.
After making sure that the young people who came from as far as Maryland were OK with going to the overflow room, I darted back to the office to listen to the hearing through the Committee website (more hearings are going on today and tomorrow, check them out here if you are interested).
The hearings were surprisingly interesting. For minute-to-minute summary, check out my live-blog about the opening remarks and about the testimonies. There were three things that came up during the hearing that every person concerned about the climate crisis should know:
Join our friends at Choice USA for a National Call-In Day TODAY to support comprehensive sex education!
It is wide-spread knowledge that abstinence-only sex education has not proven to be effective in preventing sexually-transmitted diseases or unwanted pregnancies. There has even been a highly conclusive congressional study showing that it has grievously failed our society as a substitute for sex education. However, leaders of our nation still insist on using our money to fund wishful thinking instead of facts, thereby cheating young adults of comprehensive sex education and putting their health and future at risk.
In a little-known subplot of the health care reform discussion, ineffective abstinence education just might get a big boost, thanks to Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT). Sen. Hatch proposed an amendment to the Senate Finance Committee health care proposal to give $50 million in funding to abstinence-only programs. The amendment just squeaked by (with 12 out of 23 votes) to rear its disingenuous head in the committee’s final bill.
Concerned citizens living in areas where abstinence-only programs are currently taught could turn to more successful strategies of sex education, once government funding expires in the coming years. But now, if Hatch’s amendment makes it to the reform bill that reaches President’s Obama’s desk, we can all look forward to incomprehensive sex education that could result in another decade of increasing rates of HIV/AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs).
Responsible legislators must block this bogus amendment from getting through Congress. Senator Max Baucus (D-MT), who supports comprehensive, effective sex education, is in the small group that is compiling the Senate’s final health care reform bill, and it is imperative that he eliminate Hatch’s agenda from their plan. We owe it to our nation’s youth, and to all those who have suffered from disease and unwanted pregnancy because they were never given realistic tools to prevent it.
Join Choice USA NOW for a National Call-In Day to support comprehensive sex education!
*This blog was written by Carly Groff, Advocacy Intern
“I’m very concerned about health care in our nation. I’m worried that once I’m out of the safety net of my parents’ [health insurance plan], I won’t be able to keep up with my health expenses. My name is Joe, I’m 19 and I’m voting for health care.” – Joe, October 2008.
“Both of my parents are social workers, so [universal health care] is dinner table conversation for us. They will come home and talk about all of these people who are not insured, who don’t have health care, and who are sitting [at home] wondering how they are going to pay for their medication. It just affects so many people. I don’t think people even realize how many people are out there that really need help. I’m Kaitlyn, I’m 18 years old and I’m voting for universal health care.” – Kaitlyn, 18, October 2008
“My mom went into the hospital complaining of back pains, two days later she had a stroke. My family was [told] that the only providers that could help were either out-of- state or out- of- network. My mom died a year later. My name is Shauna Harris and I’m voting for health care reform.” – Shauna Harris, October 2008
Joe, Kaitlyn, and Shauna are young voters who shared their reason for voting during the Campus Progress Action “I’m Voting For” project in 2008.
These are the words of young voters from across the country spoken just weeks before they, and thousands like them, hit the polls in record numbers to usher in change for the 2008 presidential election. The demand for health care reform was the motivation for casting their votes and now, one year later, it is time to deliver that change.
October has proved to be a step in the right direction, with health care reform legislation making its way through the fifth and final Congressional committee in charge of writing a reform bill. However, there is a long road ahead and we, as young adults impacted by the health care crisis and motivated by the hope of universal health care, have to keep up the pressure and ensure that our legislators deliver on what we voted for.
Tuesday, October 20th, millions of people across the country will be doing exactly that. There will be events, rallies and a national call-in day to generate thousands of calls to Congress with the message that now is the “time to deliver” on health care reform.
This effort will be spearheaded by Organizing for America and other large groups across the country including the Health Care for America NOW coalition, AARP, The American Cancer Society, and FamiliesUSA.
On Wednesday, October 21st, Rock the Vote will be engaging young Americans on the issue of health care reform through an online forum with Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Fall Out Boy’s Pete Wentz.
Finally on Thursday, October 22nd, there will be a large protest outside of the America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) conference in Washington, D.C. AHIP represents America’s health insurers and hundreds of reform supporters are going to be there to protest their bad practices like denying care.
There are so many things we can do as young Americans in support of health care reform, and we will have to keep up the pressure until a bold piece of legislation lands on our President’s desk, but this week holds many opportunities to take a step further than casting our vote last year. So get out and take part in some of these actions and remind Congress and President Obama why you voted and that you’d like to see change delivered now.
All the excitement and buzz right now is centered around the CBO score of the Senate Finance Committee’s health care bill, which was released yesterday from the Congressional Budget Office. This score analyzes the Committee’s legislation and let’s us all know how much reform is going to cost, how many people it will insure and how much revenue it will bring in.
The media and many Congress members are ecstatic about the low number of $829 billion the CBO scored for the cost of this reform package. It seems the Committee’s goal was to meet President Obama’s key requests for financing health care reform, which were to not add “one dime” to the budget deficit and to keep the cost below $900 billion. Well, Mission Accomplished. However, no one is talking about the fact that the bill will still leave 25 million people uninsured- so of course it is cheap!
25 million people falling through the cracks of what is supposed to be an overhaul of our health insurance system in order to ensure coverage for all Americans is just unacceptable.
25 million people is roughly equivalent to the population of Iowa, Arkansas, Nevada, Maine, Nebraska, Montana, North Dakota, Connecticut and Louisiana combined.
These nine states just happen to be home to eight Senators, and the Senate Majority Leader, that have played a big part in the creation (or opposition) to this bill. Shall all all those responsible for watering this bill down so thoroughly as to leave the equivalent of their entire home state uninsured really get credit for receiving such a “great” CBO score?
Compared to the HELP bill, the Senate Finance Committee’s bill took longer to complete, it still has not been voted out of committee (vote expected next week at this point), costs more and insures less people. The HELP bill, which is the version of health care reform that the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee created, includes a public option, the Senate Finance bill does not. I’ll let you come to your own conclusions.
The next step is for Senate Finance Committee members to review the CBO score before voting the bill out of their committee next week. Then Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will sit behind closed doors with just a few select Senators (most likely Senator Dodd from the HELP committee and Senator Baucus from the Senate Finance Committee) to combine the two versions of health care reform legislation in the Senate. This is where the public option still has a chance. This is where Congress still has a chance to leave no one behind and ensure affordable coverage for all.
Funding our Future is a campaign to pass a progressive federal budget for 2010 and ensure that our nation.s key economic choices invest in our education, spark reform of our health care system, and address climate change through cap and trade and clean energy investments. Click here for more info.
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This Wednesday at 11am, the 
A man at the Bachmann protest yesterday holds this sign –which doesn’t even make any sense.
One year ago, my generation -adults ages 18-34 – saturated the voting polls across the country, casting their votes in record numbers with hope that things could change.
As I mentioned in a 
All the excitement and buzz right now is centered around the