 Hello and welcome to Abledon on Air, the one and only program that focuses on the needs, concerns and achievements of the differently able. I'm your host, Lauren Seiler. I'm Ian Seiler. And on this program, today we focus on the Vermont Worker Center. The Vermont Worker Center was created in 1998 by the, and it is a statewide grassroots organization of individuals and families who are committed to standing for justice and they have hundreds of individual members around the state who work and who work over with a dozen partner organizations, unions, churches and community groups, etc. With us to discuss the Vermont Worker Center, which is also part of the Poor People's Campaign, is Leanna Gayet and Christine Smith. Welcome to Abledon on Air, how you doing? Thank you. What exactly are you guys doing for the Vermont Worker Center now, because we know that there's strikes going on with nurses and health care and that's important. So what exactly are you doing? We are trying to get the word out for everybody to be able to get universal health care. What exactly is universal health care? Is health care for everybody? Nobody is excluded. It doesn't matter if you're in poverty or you're getting a lot of money. It's for everybody. Well, in your opinion, because you know that they're trying now, I've done research that's trying to, during this current administration, they're trying to cut Medicare and Medicaid and make it horrible for people to have health care, because recently now, for example, in Burlington, nurses are striking and you can't strike when people need nurses. What is your opinion on that? When you have patients going into the ER, the first people you see are the nurses. You don't see the doctors first. And you know, if you see a doctor first without any kind of triage, the doctor doesn't know what's going on. They're just listening to what you tell them. So going through a nurse is better because you can give them basically everything that they need to know to pass it on to the doctors and then they can evaluate you more. Leanna, how important for you is health care, knowing that this current administration is cutting stuff? Well, right now, health care is very important to me because without insurance or whatever, I would have to pay hospitals and doctors and specialists. Since this is part of the, and the Poor People's Campaign got started by the Martin Luther King Jr., how is this part of the Poor People's Campaign or what is different about this and the Vermont Worker Center, both? The Poor People's Campaign goes along with the Vermont Worker Center and we go to board meetings with the Green Island Health Care Board and people testify about why insurance companies don't need a raise and whatnot because the last board meeting we went to, they wanted, Blue Cross Blue Shield wanted a raise and NVP Health Care wanted a raise. A raise as far as employees or deductibles? They wanted to raise the rates to where Blue Cross Blue Shield wanted like 12% to 13%. The Poor People's Campaign and Vermont Worker Center won that one. They only got like 3%. Thank goodness. So we did win that one, yes. Thank goodness because they, and they're wages. Why do they want to raise the rates though? Because they don't care, they want money. That's what they want. It is. It is. Because, you know, you've got a lot of, you know, people, new people coming in and, you know, oh, Blue Cross Blue Shield is, you know, an amazing health care. Yes, it is. But if you don't have the right plan that goes along with you, you're going to land up paying more than what you need. You need to get the right plan fit for you, not for five and six thousand more people that pay the same. Okay. There's something called slamming. What that means is that you'll get something in the mail stating that you must have this health care situation and not your own. What's wrong with that? They are trying to get you to drop your own and pay for their plans. But it doesn't work because a lot of people cannot afford it. No. You've got low income families. You've got people who can't afford to even put food on their table. Yes. So how in the world are they going to be able to, they're going to have to choose between having food or health care. I'd rather choose both and have Medicaid and Medicare instead of having a high priced insurance rates and not be able to afford anything. And I've been going around town here in Montpelier. In terms of the, I wanted to get to the petition. What exactly are you guys trying to do with those petitions? You know, I know you guys are knocking on doors trying to get signatures. Once you get all those signatures, what are those signatures represent? We've got to follow up with the people that have signed the petitions and see if they're interested in becoming a member of the Vermont Worker Center. And some people say yes. Some people say no. So it all depends. Some people are afraid to sign because they're afraid that, okay, if I get involved with this, my benefit is going to be taken away because of it. Exactly. That's not what we stand for. We basically stand for, you know, trying to get everybody insured, not just one person. Everybody, yeah. Because we know that Bernie, the Bernie Sanders just won the primary, hopefully, because he's trying to fight for good health care. And that's what we need, you know, on our back door. You know, we go out with these petitions and, you know, we knock on the doors and we, you know, let them know who we are and who we're with and explain a little bit about, you know, why we do this and then ask them about what their health care is like, you know, if they're happy with it or if they don't have none or are they fighting for it. But some people don't want us to know. But, you know, the more that you can ask questions and then get their own story, you know, then we get them to see if they want to sign the petition. But we also encourage them and invite them to our dinners to where that we have once a month so we can understand their stories and share their stories with other OCs, which is organization committees. Right now, Washington County is so far the only organization in Vermont that does the dinners once a month. And you know, we have our turnouts and then we have slow turnouts, but we get our point across. And your point is, good health care now, co-pays, right, a lot of people in terms of, because originally we're from New York. Vermont in New York, the Medicaid in New York has no co-pays. What the heck? When we get here to Vermont, we have co-pays, co-pays, co-pays on medications, so I'm going to use why is there, in your opinion, should there be co-pays or shouldn't there be? I don't think there should be co-pays because a lot of people can't afford them. No. It's two, three bucks each time, but you can add that up, 30, 40 bucks a month. Yeah. And for me, with my Medicaid, I hit my deductible pretty quick. Okay. What is a deductible? A deductible is what you pay out of pocket. Once you've hit that, then your medicines are free. You don't have to pay the rest of the year. A lot of people are not that lucky. No. They're really not, and they're struggling to pay for that. I've gone into pharmacies and people will go and pick up their medicines, oh, I can't afford this. And even if it's a dollar or two dollars, sometimes they will waive that. Oh, they do waive it. It depends on the pharmacy. Yes, it depends on the pharmacy. I've had a couple of mine waived, but the majority of the time I've been able to pay. But it's hard. It's either do we need milk or do we need medicine? I think we need medicine more than we need milk. Well, the three things that are mainly important, rent, food on the table, clothes on your back, and bills. I mean, people can wear newspaper, but it doesn't work like that. It doesn't. And then it's like your medicines are on the back burner. You can die without having no medicine. So going back to your question about the Vermont Worker Center and the Poor People's Campaign, we're all about the same thing. We come together as a full circle, as one. We put our voices all together and get these petitions. And then we want to take them. We want to get so many of them, so many. And take them to the governor and say, look, we're not going to back down. We are not. You're not going to push us around and say, well, no, you don't need health care. You know, for me, I would say, well, if the governor wants to do that, then maybe he don't need a phone. He don't need medicine. He don't need a house. He don't need clothes on his back. Let him go and live on the streets and see how it is without anything. And then maybe he will sign this Act 48. It's already been passed in 2011. Let him push it and say, yes, we do need this universal health care for all. In terms of phone and everything else, health care is extremely important. In certain states, people are buying $1,200 cell phones and not even paying them rent. And we don't have good health care. They don't have a pan. What's more important? A phone, I understand people, I mean, they took away pay phones pretty much. But I understand you need a phone. But why are you paying $1,200 when you need a bandaid or you need an aspirin? An aspirin in the hospital, I think, I'm not sure you're still paying for aspirin, but years ago, $10, $20 just for one aspirin is crazy. All the medicine that you get in the hospital is on your bill anyway. Yeah, pretty much. Aspirin is along right with it, you know? Pretty much. In terms of what people's care paid, now you guys are similar or you guys are working together. But what exactly how does that play into? We do work together. We do rallies together. We go to different towns and do a rally. We just did one in June in St. John'sbury. We had the Poor People's Campaign. We had the Vermont Workers' Center. And I think there was a couple other different groups. And that went really well. We marched up and down, I guess, basically I think it was Main Street there. And there was quite a few people that were out watching us and stuff, and it was an amazing turnout. And we did a picket line here in Montpelier in front of the city hall. And some of the Green Mountain Board members actually saw us outside doing it as they walked into the city hall for the board meeting. But I'm not really sure if they said anything to us or not. Only two of them did. When we all went into the city hall to go speak at the Green Mountain Care Board, I was one of them that spoke, and I told the two people that did stop and talked to us. I actually told them that we appreciate that they have heart. It was like the other care boards. They just didn't seem to have heart. They didn't care. What happens if they have nothing? That's right. How would they feel? Even then, people driving by us also honked their horns when they saw us do it. And I got some compliments because Channel 5 News was there, and some people saw it on TV. So I got some compliments from the building that I live in. Now, in terms of, you know, because in certain states, you have to wait like 16, 17, 18 hours to be treated. You guys are fighting for good health care. In your opinion, especially in Vermont, the hospitals, like in terms of lack of staff, now because of ... I want to ... How is it important not to wait so long for treatment? For example, CBH, also known as the University of Vermont Medical Center. You either wait there like half an hour just sitting in the waiting room, waiting for triage. But people come in by ambulance and they are treated much quicker than the other patients are. So would you like to see ... I would like to see the nurses treat patients on time so we don't have to sit around and wait forever for a nurse or a doctor to come in and talk to us. My opinion is if you come in by an ambulance, it's more tragic than if you come in with a broken arm. Well, you have somebody shot or something. Exactly. So you have to put those patients first. The ones in the waiting room, it doesn't ... When I go, it's not as long. Just when you get in the room, you have so many doctors to so many patients and you have to understand their situation too because if you have someone that comes in critical at the same time that you're back in the back of the room, which one are you going to choose? You're going to choose that critical one before and I can understand that I've worked on both sides of healthcare. As what, nurses? No, I'm almost like an LNA, but I worked with MR patients. A lot of people don't understand what that is, but it's mentally ... Not your tradition. Yes. Which we don't say anymore. Exactly. We're not supposed to say. As a matter of fact, yes. We're not supposed to because it's a category and everybody is a category, which they should not be. Some hospitals here in Vermont still have, when I came to Vermont to be treated for a seizure, they still have that on the medical form, mental retardation. Yes. Because if they don't know exactly what is wrong, they want to make sure that they're going to diagnose you the correct way and not mess it up. There still are doctors and stuff that still mess things up, but they're only human like we are. Another thing for the Vermont Worker Center and put poor people first is healthcare is a human right. Everybody deserves to have it. Like housing. Housing, exactly. That's another issue. It is. I just found out Sunday that the shelter in Berry put 50 people in houses. So they're trying to eliminate homelessness by 2020 and they're starting off pretty good. I still see a lot of homelessness on the streets. Homelessness in healthcare is like together. It's like, if you're on the street, let's say you're on the street, okay? You're tired, you're hungry, you're cut or you've got whatever on you. The elements in the wintertime can put somebody in the hospital. That's why they have overflow shelters. Yeah, they just renewed it in a Bethany test. Yeah, they just renewed the overflow here in Montpelier. And I think they had like $30,000 put into it, just so homelessness in the wintertime can decrease. Yeah, because the shelter helps people with Medicare, they help them with health insurance if they need it, they help them with other things. And I understand that you have Montpelier is building a bus station with apartments above it, but that's not going to take everybody off the streets. Like the abandoned buildings in Barrie, they need to turn those into apartment buildings. They do. So what do you think would come first here? They could put apartments. Do you think? Okay. Instead of making it a parking lot. But there's one thing that needs to be fixed. You think the healthcare system in the United States as a whole need to be fixed because if certain countries like Israel, Ireland, and European countries have free healthcare or universal. I do. And they do. And I think USA needs to have the same. Honestly. Instead of waiting until somebody is like 65 and then be like, okay, they get free medical. They should help the disabled and the low income people and be like, okay, they need free Medicare to help them with whatever. And so do you think the millionaires or the people that the rich people need to help out the poor people, if possible, with the whole healthcare? And there's been rich people that have been homeless, too. You know? Yeah, but rich people that are homeless don't stay homeless for long unless they go bankrupt. So how do you think the self care problem should be fixed? What is your main take on it? My main take on it is that we all need to come together and have one voice and show up at the state house and say, look, please help us. Don't put us on the back burner anymore. And, you know, like Leon has said about the rich people, you know, yeah, they can afford healthcare. Yeah, they can. But what happens if they go from having all this money to having zero? They're going to need healthcare, you know, let them help support us for a while and give us what we need. Because they're getting all the tax breaks. They don't have to worry about anything. All the tax breaks are coming down on us, which is putting us all in a bind. They should put on the middle class. They should put on the rich more. Exactly. Why should we have to pay them? They get away with murders. It's not good. Yeah, but I think that we all need to just come together as one nation, like it says, you know. One nation under God. Thank you. Yes. It all needs to be like the pledge. We all need to come together. We all need to stick together. What are the future goals of my work? Keep fighting. Keep fighting. Keep going to these boards, the Green Mountain Care Board and saying what we think and basically giving them hell for wanting to keep raising the prices up and have the support. That's basically what we're looking for, is the support and the people that join our cause. You can have people say no, but then they think about it after you leave. Wow, they make a lot of sense. How do I get in contact with them? So I'm just going to put this out there. There is an OC meeting on the 13th of September at the Green Church in Berry, which is an organization committee. Okay. Organizing committee. And our dinners are every 4th Saturday of the month. If you would like more information on the Vermont Worker Center or any event that they're having that's coming up, please contact the Vermont Worker Center at www.vermontworkercenter.org or vwc.org. Thank you.