Charlie Averill

Phone or email your Congressman today

2009-11-06T10:14:00.001-06:00

The House will likely vote on their health care bill tomorrow, a bill that guarantees quality, affordable health care for all and gives us a choice of a public health insurance option. It meets all of our principles and deserves to be passed.

Yesterday, I participated in a conference call sponsored by the Alliance for Retired Americans. I learned a few things about the U.S. House of Representatives health reform bill HR3962 and want to share what I learned with you.

The AARP and the American Medical Association have both endorsed the bill.
The bill will strengthen the Medicare Trust Fund.
Without reform, in 2010, every couple will pay an additional $90 per year in their Part B premiums just to subsidize the so called “Medicare Advantage” private insurance plans.
The bill will begin to close the Medicare Part D Donut Hole. In 2010, those who find themselves in the Donut Hole would see a 50% decrease in their drug costs.
The bill would develop policies to more quickly allow those high tech biological drugs (such as cancer drugs) to become generic drugs.
Currently, an insurance company can charge premiums for a 64 year old eleven times what the premium for a 24 year old would be charged.
The new bill would eliminate the co pays (out of pocket costs) for preventive care.
Without healthcare reform, physicians face a 21% cut in pay.
The bill allows for bulk purchasing of prescription drugs for Medicare recipients.
It also allows Medicare to negotiate for prescription drug prices with the drug companies.
The new bill would develop incentives to reward affective transitional care from hospital to follow up physician care.
It would also have incentives to help reduce hospital infections.

If you haven’t phoned or emailed your congressman, please do so today because congress will vote on it tomorrow (Saturday). They need to vote for HR3962.

Thanks.

Congratulations to Georgia Pacific Workers

2009-11-05T21:32:00.002-06:00

Today, the workers at the Georgia Pacific Gypsum plant in Wheatfield, Indiana won their election to be members of the United Steelworkers Union.

We need the Employee Free Choice Act so workers won't ever have to go through what this stinking company has put them through for the last three years.

Georgia Pacific Field of Dreams

2009-11-04T19:49:00.002-06:00

Union members at the Georgia Pacific Gypsum plant in Wheatfield, Indiana fought a long and hard battle and finally ratified a labor contract last spring. Shortly before the ratification vote, a decertification petition was filed with the National Labor Relations Board by a small group which has opposed union representation from the very start. The USW filed several unfair labor practice charges that were settled by Georgia-Pacific and a 60 day posting time has passed which is now allowing for this decertification election.
These local members needed our show of support so on November 3, 2009, Steelworkers and SOAR members rallied outside the gate of the Georgia Pacific Gypsum plant in Wheatfield, Indiana.Georgia Pacific management is giving the same old speeches of past organizing campaigns filled with empty threats and promises. No matter how many boss's come and go our union contract protects their wages, benefits and working conditions.

Here's the company lingo:

"We have a new and better way of doing things, it's called MBM. Give us a year to put our new ideas into effect."........... Koch, owner, 2006

"Give me another year...if it doesn't get better, you can vote for a union next year."...Kurt Riggen, former Plant Manager, 2007

"I have a lot of ideas, give me one year to make imporovements. If it doesn't get better you can vote for a union next year."...Dave Sunberg, Current plant manager, 2009

A worker could ask him/her self three questions.
Has Georgia Pacific/Koch ever lived up to any of their promises?Was GP Wheatfield a better place to work before union representation?While Georgia Pacific management was looking to cut your wages and benefits while giving themselves raises and bonuses....Who's been fighting for you?The United Steelworkers!

Don't fall for Georgia Pacific's "Field of Dreams"
Vote Yes!

It's hard to be a Blogger, Georgia Pacific

2009-11-02T10:09:00.003-06:00

In attempting to be a blogger, I'm not doing too good. I'm saying in so few words what otherwise could be said in so many. If any of you have details of a college course I could get that could teach me how to say in 1000 words or more what otherwise could be said in 10 words or less, please let me know.

Tomorrow, Tuesday November 3, we will have a short demonstration in Wheatfield, Indiana at the Georgia Pacific gypsum plant. The demonstration will be from 2:00 pm till 3:30 pm CST. The location is on Co. Rd. 1350 North in Wheatfield, just next to that huge NIPSCO generating station.

Even though Georgia-Pacific workers now have a first contract, they are still facing a decertification vote due to a small group who never wanted union representation.

GP workers need our support to finally put this behind them and to help give them the opportunity to build a strong active local union. The local union members have
fought long and hard together against an anti-union Georgia Pacific management. We can’t allow all their hard work to be for nothing! Please come and support these courageous workers one more time and send a clear message to Georgia Paific management that the union is here to stay!

Contact persons: Ted Sautter 219-793-5346 or Mike O’Brien 219-765-7778

See what I mean? Just not enough words. This could have taken a half hour to read.

Butterfly, my favorite aria

2009-11-01T15:52:00.001-06:00

Why we need Health Insurance Reform

2009-10-31T07:39:00.000-05:00

RALLY for GP Gypsum Workers

2009-10-30T19:39:00.004-05:00

Date: Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Time: 2:00 pm to 3:30 pm cst

Georgia-Pacific Gypsum
Co Rd 1350 North
Wheatfield, IN

Even though Georgia-Pacific workers now have a first contract they are still facing a decertification vote on Thursday, November 5 due to a small group who never wanted union representation.

GP workers need our support to finally put this behind them and to help give them the opportunity to build a strong active local union. The local union members have
fought long and hard together against an anti-union GP management. We can’t allow all
their hard work to be for nothing! Please come and support these courageous workers one more time and send a clear message to GP management that the union is here to stay!

Contact persons: Ted Sautter 219-793-5346 or Mike O’Brien 219-765-7778

Federal Mogul rally video

2009-10-29T19:31:00.001-05:00

What a great show of solidarity at Federal Mogul

2009-10-28T19:53:00.002-05:00

Just couldn't have asked for a better turn out today at our demonstration against the turncoat, renegade, cheating, corrupt, crooked, thieving company of Federal Mogul down in Logansport, Indiana.
Really showed what unionism is all about. Thankyou everyone who was able to be with us.

Rally photos can be seen here:

Retirees Wanted at Federal Mogul Demonstration

2009-10-27T21:40:00.002-05:00

Come and help the retirees at Federal Mogul Corporation located in Logansport, Indiana.

They will demonstrate in front of this company at 3pm EDT, Wednesday, October 28.

This renegade company is trying to eliminate health insurance for their retirees. People who gave up wages throughout the years so they could have health insurance when they retire, and now the company wants to dump them.

If we keep letting this happen, none of us will be secure in our retirement years.

You can find out the particulars by clicking here.

Thanks.

Feral Mongrel, a.k.a. Federal Mogul (What's the difference)

2009-10-25T15:34:00.004-05:00

Feral Mongrel, a.k.a. Federal Mogul, is the company in Logansport, Indiana that is wanting to eliminate medical insurance for their retirees, thus requiring the rest of us to foot the bill.

This renegade company is located just a golf shot south of Logansport, Indiana on route 29.

It's located on the east side of the highway.

The address is 101 Industrial Blvd., Logansport, Indiana 46947.

If you would like to give them a call to let them know that they are on the wrong side of humanity, the phone number is: 574-722-6141.

Be sure to let them know that you know someone who is retired. Remind them that they know someone in their family who is retired.

Remind them that some day, they will also be retired.

Are you listening Congressman Donnelly? Now do you see why we need a public option included in the health insurance reform? To make up for poor coporate citizens like Feral Mongrel.

Federal Mogul Ain't no Cute Pig

2009-10-24T14:52:00.005-05:00

Nope. Federal Mogul Corporation down in Logansport, Indiana ain't no cute kind of pig.

Oh no, this pig has been to the city trough enough times to qualify as an out and out hog.

We'll supply jobs with good benefits. Sure they will. Then after a few years cut the benefits and put the city, state and federal government and taxpayers on the hook for what remains.

This stinking company, Federal Mogul, is the worse kind of corporate citizen.

Negotiates benefits, then when retirees look for some little bit of security and pleasant retirement in their golden years, this rotten company puts the fright into them by suggesting they want to take away their medical insurance.

You know what? That suggestion came out someone's mouth. Not everyone's mouth. Just that one persons mouth. I want to know who that one person is.

Who's side is Joe Donnelly on? I want to know the answer to that question too.

Another Stinking fish in Indiana’s 2nd Congressional District

2009-10-23T19:15:00.001-05:00

What does a rotten-to-the-core company do to the retirees of that company who devoted their working lives helping it succeed? Try to eliminate their health insurance, that’s what.

Federal Mogul, the company in Logansport, Indiana that makes Carter fuel pumps, wants to eliminate the medical insurance for those retirees who devoted their working lives to this once proud company.

Today, I can say that Federal Mogul is the absolute worst company in Indiana. If they succeed in eliminating health insurance for their retirees, they will be the worst company in the nation as far as I’m concerned. If they fail in their attempt to eliminate this insurance for retirees, then they are guilty of scaring retirees unnecessarily.

I hope Congressman Joe Donnelly takes notice of this stinking rotten company, Federal Mogul, and heaps on them the just reward they will surely get some day.

Shame on Federal Mogul and any member of that management team that assists that company in treating their retirees with such contemptible behavior.

News from the National Alliance for Retired Americans

2009-10-20T07:43:00.002-05:00

News from the National Alliance for Retired Americans
Barbara J. Easterling, President

As president of the Alliance for Retired Americans, I know that many older people are scared and confused, fearful of the change that health reform may bring.

While retirees have a lot to gain from health reform, you would never know it from all the mean-spirited myths and falsehoods that are out there. Seniors are scared and confused because powerful interests are spending millions of dollars – and spreading millions of lies – to preserve the status quo, a broken system that puts profits ahead of people, special interests ahead of the public interest.

Let’s make it our mission to help separate fact from fiction. When someone says to you that health reform will be bad for seniors, set the record straight.

Tell them how we have an opportunity to close the Medicare Part D doughnut hole, lower prescription drug costs, help early retirees afford health care coverage, and assist middle-class families with the costs of long-term care. We can end the out-of-control premium increases at the big insurance companies through fair competition from a high-quality public alternative to the corporations who profit by denying us care and discriminating against our pre-existing conditions.

But this is not just about us. Think about your children and grandchildren. How are they doing in these difficult times? What would happen if they lost their job? At a time of sky-high premiums and unfair rules against pre-existing conditions, would they be able to get health insurance? Would they be able to pay their doctor’s bill or get a prescription filled?

My fellow retirees, our working days may be over, but our fighting spirit burns as strong as ever. We have an exciting chance to improve health care in America. This can be our lasting legacy, and I know we can do it.

Republicans are Callous

2009-10-19T18:45:00.003-05:00

Every day this month, 7,000 workers without jobs will lose their unemployment compensation. Why?, because of two heartless right wingers. Senators Orin Hatch, Republican from Utah, and Senator John Kyl, Republican from Arizona.

These two have twice blocked attempts in the U.S. Senate to extend unemployment benefits. Got money to make war? Sure. Got enough to give big tax breaks to the wealthy? Sure. But do we have enough money to help the unemployed? Hell no.

Leave it to the right wing nuts to ruin a country. It's no wonder that the conservatives are re-writing the Bible.

As Jack Clark says, "right wingers only vote for things that cause human pain, misery, suffering and death."

Brett Voorhies for Indiana House of Representatives

2009-10-16T18:58:00.004-05:00

Yesterday I met a guy from Indianapolis who is running for the Indiana House of Representatives in District 92 (West Indianapolis).

Brett Voorhies, long time Steelworker is taking the plunge into politics for the first time. I'm so impressed with this guy, that I just had to tell you about him.

Brett has been the legislative representative for the Steelworkers Union in Indiana for the past several years, and he'll make a great representative for retirees and working families in our state.

You can become acquainted with Brett by going to his website at the following web address:

Click here

Health Insurance update

2009-10-13T19:08:00.004-05:00

So, the Senate Finance Committee finally passed their version of health care reform. Well, just one Republican't voted in favor of it. But it did pass.

This means we move forward with the legislation.

Actually the Finance Committee version stinks for the following reasons:

It taxes healthcare benefits, potentially impacting thousands of USW members with higher-cost plans. These plans could be expensive because they cover older workers, workers with worse than average health histories or even because of a geographic area. While the tax is levied on insurers, or self-insured employers, the cost will undoubtedly be passed on to workers in the form of higher premiums.
It doesn’t include a public option. A public option – like in the House bill – would provide real competition for private insurance companies.
Employers are not required to contribute in some way towards employees’ healthcare, allowing irresponsible employers to continue dumping their healthcare costs on others with no penalty.

Senator Bayh from Indiana is the guy we need to give some encouragement to.

Please write to him or call him and tell him to do the right thing when the final bill comes up for a vote.

We need the public option.

Pence--The Shame of Indiana

2009-10-11T11:13:00.000-05:00

"If the President has a BLT tomorrow, the Republicans will try to ban bacon"

2009-10-10T19:48:00.001-05:00

Let Congress Go Without Insurance

2009-10-08T20:21:00.002-05:00

By Nicholas D. Kristof
Op-Ed Columnist for the NY Times

Let me offer a modest proposal: If Congress fails to pass comprehensive health reform this year, its members should surrender health insurance in proportion with the American population that is uninsured.

It may be that the lulling effect of having very fine health insurance leaves members of Congress insensitive to the dysfunction of our existing insurance system. So what better way to attune our leaders to the needs of their constituents than to put them in the same position?

About 15 percent of Americans have no health insurance, according to the Census Bureau. Another 8 percent are underinsured, according to the Commonwealth Fund, a health policy research group. So I propose that if health reform fails this year, 15 percent of members of Congress, along with their families, randomly lose all health insurance and another 8 percent receive inadequate coverage.

Congressional critics of President Obama’s efforts to achieve health reform worry that universal coverage will be expensive, while their priority is to curb social spending. So here’s their chance to save government dollars in keeping with their own priorities.

Those same critics sometimes argue that universal coverage needn’t be a top priority because anybody can get coverage at the emergency room. Let them try that with their kids.

Some members also worry that a public option (an effective way to bring competition to the insurance market) would compete unfairly with private companies and amount to a step toward socialism. If they object so passionately to “socialized health,” why don’t they block their 911 service to socialized police and fire services, disconnect themselves from socialized sewers and avoid socialized interstate highways?

I wouldn’t wish the trauma of losing health insurance on anyone, but our politicians’ failure to assure health care for all citizens is such a longstanding and grievous breach of their responsibility that they deserve it. In January 1917, Progressive Magazine wrote: “At present the United States has the unenviable distinction of being the only great industrial nation without universal health insurance." More than 90 years later, we still have that distinction.

Theodore Roosevelt campaigned for national health insurance in 1912. Richard Nixon tried for universal coverage in 1974. Yet, even now, nearly half of Congress is vigorously opposed to such a plan.

Health care has often been debated as a technical or economic issue. That has been a mistake, I believe. At root, universal health care is not an economic or technical question but a moral one.

We accept that life is unfair, that some people will live in cramped apartments and others in sprawling mansions. But our existing insurance system is not simply inequitable but also lethal: a very recent, peer-reviewed article in the American Journal of Public Health finds that nearly 45,000 uninsured people die annually as a consequence of not having insurance. That’s one needless death every 12 minutes.

When nearly 3,000 people were killed on 9/11, we began wars and were willing to devote more than $1 trillion in additional expenses. Yet about the same number of Americans die from our failed insurance system every three weeks.

The obstacle isn’t so much money as priorities. America made it a priority to provide tax breaks, largely to the wealthy, in the Bush years, at a 10-year cost including interest of $2.4 trillion. Allocating less than half that much to assure equal access to health care isn’t deemed an equal priority.

The plan emerging in the Senate is no panacea. America needs to promote exercise and discourage sugary drinks to hold down the rise in obesity, diabetes and medical bills. We need more competition among insurance companies. And conservatives are right to call for tort reform to reduce the costs of malpractice insurance and defensive medicine.

But those steps are not a substitute for guaranteed health coverage for all Americans. And if health reform fails this year, then hopes for universal coverage will recede again. There was a lag of 19 years after the Nixon plan before another serious try, and a 16-year lag after the Clinton effort of 1993. Another 16-year delay would be accompanied by more than 700,000 unnecessary deaths. That’s more Americans than died in World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam and Iraq combined.

The collapse of health reform would be a political and policy failure, but it would also be a profound moral failure. Periodically, there are political questions that are fundamentally moral, including slavery in the 19th century and civil rights battles in the 1950s and ’60s. In the same way, allowing tens of thousands of Americans to die each year because they are uninsured is not simply unwise and unfortunate. It is also wrong — a moral blot on a great nation.

Ah-refreshing--Anna Netrebko

2009-10-07T17:58:00.001-05:00

Where we stand on health insurance reform

2009-10-07T05:52:00.004-05:00

Click on the photo above to enlarge it.

Where do my premiums go?

2009-10-05T11:59:00.001-05:00

We're Number 37!

2009-10-04T10:07:00.001-05:00

Finally, a Republican Health Care Plan

2009-10-02T17:23:00.000-05:00