 No more suffering anywhere, no more suffering anywhere, no more suffering anywhere, no more suffering anywhere. Yes, I really do believe that change is coming out there, change is coming out there. Jump over my head, justice everywhere, I see justice everywhere. I really do believe, yes I really do believe that change is coming out there, change is coming out there. Thank you for coming, can everybody hear me? Yes. Thank you. Welcome, thank you everyone for being here and especially to the reporters and legislators who have come to join us. My name is Kate Canelstein, I'm a resident of Burlington and an organizer with the Vermont Workers Center. I'm also a mother of two toddlers and a member of the nonviolent Medicaid Army. This press event today with Andy Lindquist. We'll share some remarks, hear from a number of speakers and then take some action together. We are here today because we live in the wealthiest country in human history and yet there are 140 million poor and low wealth people in the United States today. Poverty is the fourth leading cause of death in the U.S. It's literally a death sentence and many of us in this room are wearing black for that reason to underscore that point. During the pandemic, the federal government expanded Medicaid, housing, cash distributions, food stamps and a host of other programs, though they excluded many. And yet today those programs and perfect as they were have been defunded and abandoned. Defunded we should add while billions are redirected towards increased military spending and the war on the Palestinian people. 14 million people across the United States including millions of kids have been thrown off of Medicaid since last spring. Thousands of us here in Vermont are in and out of housing navigating the motel program or living outdoors or at cars. We face the horrors of being denied medical care while incarcerated or excluded from a life with dignity because of systemic racism, ableism and violent immigration policies. But most importantly, we are here today because poor people, working class people are not just impacted by this crisis but are organizing and fighting for a right. We are here today to offer leadership and moral guidance to Vermont's policymakers and to ensure that the decisions that are made in this building respect our human right to health, housing, education, freedom from incarceration and other fundamental needs. Thank you Kate so much for that housing introduction. As she said, my name is Andy Lindquist. I am a resident of Norwich Vermont and a member of the Vermont Worker Center. Right after I moved to Vermont in July of 2020, I enrolled in Medicaid. During that first pandemic summer, I was balancing being a full time graduate student with working at a grocery store. At that time, just like all quote unquote essential workers, I was constantly anxious about contracting COVID-19, a virus which at the time had no vaccine nor treatment. However, I didn't have to worry about whether contracting COVID would bankrupt me. While I was on Medicaid, I was able to see the doctor whenever I was sick without having to be deterred by employment costs. I was even able to access the gender affirming surgery I needed. In December of 2021, I received a double mastectomy from an experienced provider without having to pay anything for my care. This is a procedure that costs at bare minimum $6,000 out of pocket, which is not covered by many private insurance plans. Had I not been on Medicaid, I would never have been able to afford it. My dysphoria would still be preventing me from living a full healthy life in the community. It's good that I received the procedure when I did because I am one of the 24,344 Vermalters who have been cut from Medicaid since the state of emergency was ended. This past December, after my coverage ended, but before I was able to apply for a new health plan, I became extremely ill. It took over a week and a half of fevers, nausea, and hydration before I let myself go into the emergency room and incur the expense. That visit, along with multiple rounds of tests, wrapped up a bill of over $3,000. Instead of having the time to recover, I've been applying for financial assistance. As we experience the second largest surge of COVID nationally, I've been scared that I'll get sick again before my insurance goes through and I'll be unable to afford the treatment. And I am not alone in these fears. Thousands of poor and working-class Vermalters have been denied the resources necessary to fulfill their basic human needs. We're gathered here to listen to these speakers, share how Medicaid cutoffs, the denial of healthcare, housing, and other basic needs have affected our lives and the lives of people in our communities. I'd like to take this moment to thank everybody here for sharing their perspective. If these stories resonate with you, we invite you to join us on March 2 with the Vermont Order Work People's Campaign. We'll be rallying outside the State House with many more during a national day of mass poor people's and low-wage workers' State House assemblies and to the polls. A couple of technical notes. Speakers should speak slowly for our ASL and Spanish interpreters. And for the press, Spokespeople will be available to take questions after the conference. So it would be appreciated if you could hold your questions until the end. Now, I'd like to introduce our first speaker, Ronnie Liddell of the Vermont Poor People's Campaign. Thank you everyone. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Ronnie Liddell and I live in Burlington. On a Friday afternoon in November of 2021, while standing in City Hall Park in Burlington with a group of my friends who are also unhoused, I began to feel what I thought was just anxiety and PTSD symptoms, and it turned out to be a heart attack. I thought that these symptoms were just from being homeless for eight out of the 20 years that I have lived here in Vermont. I had to recover from a double bypass surgery in Champlain, which is a homeless shelter. My broken shower had black mold in it. I was often unable to eat the free meals because of my diet, because I have gall. In January of 2023, my mental and physical health deteriorated, and I needed to be put in the motel program. I have a traumatic brain injury. And one day a week, I had to sit for about three hours on a phone call, unsure if I was going to be housed for the next week, or if I was going to have to pack up all of my earthly belongings and go out in the winter, being fully disabled, which would be extremely difficult and find the next motel. During that time, I needed to keep up with my weekly doctor's appointments. And as ill-fitting as that program was for me, I know that I was able to get housing more quickly because I am a Pathways client. For those who have no resources and are back on the street as this motel program ends, they are going to have problems getting to the clinic or to mental health appointments or to get care related to their addictions. That puts a lot of stress on safe harbor, which is the only physical and mental health clinic for homeless people around here. And so many people are having problems getting appointments. When I finally got an apartment, I was considered unstably housed and denied care by the pain clinic. Who is stably housed? I don't really understand that term. In this world, anyone can be evicted at any time. Having been unstably housed, the information that I was on the wrong kind of Medicaid went to the wrong address and I got cut off with my services because I didn't get the mail. That meant that I didn't qualify for Choices of Care, which is my in-home caregiver service, or to be able to go to specialist appointments for my heart and my spine. And now I have bills for psychiatry, MRIs, cardiac, and the pharmacy, and I'm well over $1,000 in debt. I have a brain injury and it's hours on the phone going back and forth trying to figure everything out. And they really make it to where you have to jump through so many hoops that you just want to get up. It's the same thing with the hotel program. What if you can't get to the library because you're sick, like I was? Because if you don't respond within 48 hours to their program, you get kicked out. That way, music makes your brain just numb. That's three hours of your day that another person who isn't disabled would have to be working. I am blessed because I know resources. I am the person that other people in town go to. I have so much sympathy for people who don't, whether it's their language barrier or they're new here, or they're just really tired and trying to survive. We are 140 million poor people and people who are one emergency away from poverty. And if that doesn't apply to you, it applies to the person next to you. And if you're not struggling right now, you may be struggling tomorrow. And I know that my story sounds sad, but I am a survivor and I'm here to fight for everybody else. Everybody in my town knows me because I say, I love you even when you don't see me. And I'm a very proud member of the Poor People's Campaign, which is a national call for moral revival. And I invite everyone to join me as well. It's a moral campaign and I believe we can love our way out of poverty. Love yourself and then turn around and love your neighbor with just that much passion. We have to join together to fight our way out of this. Just an army of love. Thank you so much. Our next speaker is going to be Aaron Keller, a mental health care worker and a member of the Vermont Worker Center. Can you hear me okay? That's good. My name is Aaron Keller and I am a licensed clinical mental health counselor working full-time in the state of Vermont. In January of 2022, I was admitted to the hospital and diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Being covered by Medicaid saved my life. Beginning the summer of 2023, I lost my Medicaid coverage and my health and financial stability have been threatened. In the six months that I have been without Medicaid, between the cost of my monthly premium and the co-pays for insulin and diabetes management supplies alone, I have paid a total of $3,810. When it all adds up, my annual cost of basic health maintenance will end up being one quarter of my annual income from last year, about $10,000. Over the last two years, my employment, diet, stress management, exercise and sleep routines have all remained the same and remained robust. However, under the stress of anticipating and actually losing my Medicaid coverage since the spring of 2023, my body is requiring higher doses of insulin in order for my blood sugar to stay in range. I ultimately have three options here. Option one, use correct amount of insulin, pay more money, increase financial stress. Option two, use incorrect amount of insulin, risk overall health and increase the likelihood of going into a diabetic coma. Option three, stop taking insulin altogether and die because a few days without insulin would literally kill me. All of these options are dehumanizing and all of these options are manufactured by our current healthcare structure. The chronic stress of not knowing whether you can afford basic healthcare or if it will suddenly be taken away keeps the nervous system activated in a state of fight or flight for long, steady periods of time. The result is sustained high levels of cortisol that wreak havoc on the body both mentally and physically. We are living through a mental health crisis that is being directly intensified by the Medicaid cutoffs. As a provider, I'm scared for the field of mental health care and deeply concerned for the communities and people that we serve. I'm hearing stories of colleagues going bankrupt and therapists closing their practices due to recent devastating insurance audits. Additionally, because of the Medicaid cutoffs, people are having to discontinue their care due to not having the money to pay out of pocket prices. This is not a prediction. It's happening right now. I'm telling you this as a licensed mental health care provider. This is not a self-care problem. To Governor Scott and the Vermont State Legislature, you have the power to prioritize the health and well-being of our communities. Without universal healthcare, my body will continue to bear the burden along with thousands of other Vermonters. Thank you. All right. Thank you so much, Erin. Next, we have Cristian Santos of Migrant Justice. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Cristian Santos. I'm a dairy farm worker in the state of Vermont and also a migrant justice leader. Today, we're here together with dozens of other workers across Vermont Industries. Today, we're here as Vermont's working class to speak up because, as you heard from my colleagues around the room, Vermont has a lot of work to do to ensure our health, our safety, and our dignity. Today, we're here as Vermont's working class to speak up because, as you heard from my colleagues around the room, Vermont has a lot of work to do to ensure our health, our safety, and our dignity. So, Vermont's housing crisis is a huge problem and our community is living and experiencing this huge crisis and discrimination in different ways. If you're a migrant worker or if you're a migrant family in the state of Vermont, the landlords discriminate against you. By that, if you don't have a social security number, it basically means that you don't have a roof over your head. If you don't have a house, we're obliged to accept jobs where maybe the housing is included, but our rights as humans will continue to be violated, where you don't have a privacy, where you share rooms with three people or more, and where you have to endure so many abuse and dangerous situations that put our family at risk. So basically, this means that if you cannot rent a house, able to rent the house you know we are forced as a community to accept jobs where the housing might be provided but where we know that our human rights will continue to be violated. Places where you know you're gonna be sharing a room with three or more people but you have no privacy and on top of that your well-being might be at risk because of the treatment of missing treatment from some of the landlords. So one of the reasons why we're here today is because we want to make sure that Vermont ensures that landlords have different ways or require different documents to prove our identity so we don't continue to be discriminated against because of the fact of not having a social security number. También queremos asegurar que el estado de Vermont nos reconozca como residentes del estado cuando queremos seguir nuestros sueños de ir a la universidad. Mucho de nosotros dejamos nuestros países y nuestros sueños de seguir a la escuela y para muchos compas trabajando en Vermont este sueño aún sigue vivo. Therefore and also we're here because you know we want to make sure we also want to make sure that the state of Vermont recognizes us as residents because many of us that are working here in the state of Vermont on the dairy farms when we come when it comes to education we left our country we left our homes with the dream of continuing to go to the university or colleges and that's something that we're not able to do here. And some of the challenges that we face for example is that if you're a migrant worker or a migrant family and you want to pursue higher education it's really hard because Vermont sees you as an international student regardless of how long you've been here in Vermont or everything that you're contributing to Vermont so this means that we don't recognize we don't get recognized when we want to access in-state tuition make it impossible for us you know to pursue that that dream and having us to put us in a place where we have to choose between access in higher education or putting food on our family's table. So we want to make sure that Vermont ensures that our dreams don't die on dairy farms we want to be recognized because we deserve to be recognized a resident of the state and have access to the in-state tuition and the different benefits that come with that so that we can continue to pursue our dreams. Next up we're going to hear from Heather Baumann who is the President of the UVM Medical Center Support Staff United. Good morning everyone it's so nice to see you are here today my name is Heather Baumann I'm a phlebotomist at UVMMC and President of our newly formed 2000 plus member union support staff united also a proud dedicated mom to two kids with who are medically vulnerable who depend on Dr. Dinosaur and Medicare so last September we reached an agreement with the hospital for our first contract and we are so proud of the historic wins we were able to secure around wages worker safety and job security of course we weren't able to see eye-to-eye with management on everything in fact there was one area where they steadfastly refused to negotiate with us and that was healthcare the current system at the hospital is a regressive approach that requires those of us that earn the least to pay the same dollar amount to buy the hospitals insurance as those who earn the most since we signed our contract I hear regularly from colleagues who are just barely holding on to their Medicare excuse me Medicaid eligibility they're working full-time at the hospital while battling cancer and other chronic illnesses only to go home and worry about how they will access care if they lose their Medicaid I hear from colleagues who have the hospital insurance but they struggle to afford to take the time off to go to their medical appointments and I hear from other colleagues who find themselves newly ineligible for Medicaid but who can't afford to dedicate the upwards of 20% of their wages to buy insurance through the hospital and so because of this we have many colleagues too many colleagues who are uninsured these are health care workers we go to work every day at clinics in the hospital to provide care but we have no access to that care ourselves these colleagues who are uninsured reach out to the hospital patient financial services and many of them actually qualify for assistance through the low-income programs offered by our employer they also reach out to us their union and we do what we can but somehow boosting a go fund me on social media feels like a wholly inadequate response to a devastating diagnosis and the immediate need for care I am so grateful to work with this amazing group of folks at UVMMC my union buddies are professional they are dedicated and they are compassionate we come to work during pandemics during outbreaks and when the hospital census is critically high we take pride in being part of the team that provides for monitors with top-notch care and all we want is to make sure that this excellent care is accessible to all of our neighbors to all of our friends and family and to ourselves Governor Scott mentioned a crisis of affordability in his state of the state address last week support staff United local 5223 is well aware of this crisis and we see it as an opportunity to expand care to all Vermonters health care is a workers right health care is a Vermonters right and health care is a human right thank you so much our next speaker is going to be David Allen of Vermont just justice hi everyone my name is David Allen I'm here today representing Vermont just justice speaking on behalf of health care for all I personally was denied adequate health care while in DOC custody for 39 straight months instead of continuing to fight to prove my innocence I had to plead guilty to crimes I never committed just so I could stay alive and get out of there I chose my children I chose my loved ones I chose my health in my life and now I have three felonies I've been a type 1 diabetic since the year 2000 I've maintained maintained control of my disorder with help of a team of specialists and a personalized treatment plan type 1 diabetes is not only vastly different from type 2 diabetes but a type 1 diabetic is different from the next type 1 diabetic but in the in the facilities they treat every diabetic the exact same I've been living with this disease for 20 years without any issues I had never once had a diabetic seizure in the care of the Department of Corrections I suffered five diabetic seizures that I can remember I developed diabetic gum disease and lost a tooth I regularly experienced hypoglycemia hyperglycemia ketoacidosis and a plethora of other scares numerous near-death experiences I lived in fear for my health and life every single day I tried to use their grievance process advocating for my own health and well-being and for others who are there instead of getting me proper care I was retaliated against with things such as time in the hole assault from staff members transfers to other facilities and more there is a maximum amount of time to be held in booking of 72 hours and because I tried to advocate for what's right I was kept there with no rec no contact with family or loved ones no hygiene access no entertainment or commissary or anything at all for eight straight days more than twice the allowable maximum amount of time nobody would help me guards name called me and told me to shut up nurses yelled at me and told me they didn't care if I died doctors refused to treat me I went ahead and I filed a lawsuit which is still pending but federal court judges like Crawford and Doyle seem like they're going to side with the corrupt department and its officials the real criminals I'm required to see my specialist as a type 1 diabetic a minimum of once every six months it was three years before they finally brought me to see him he gave me very specific orders that needed to be followed by the DOC and medical staff the DOC doctor looked me in the eyes with a smug expression on his face and told me they would not be following my specialist orders now this is just my story but while I was there I watched numerous others die as a result of inadequate medical care I had a roommate for a while and he told me that he had been in several prisons in many many states Vermont was the only one where he watched people drop like flies we were being killed and discarded at a rate of one per month while the DOC and their for-profit medical group made their wallets fatter we were poisoned for dollars in their pockets in Massachusetts the worst crime I was charged with could receive if convicted a maximum penalty of five years here in Vermont I was tortured for over three years based on accusations without evidence I was not even convicted here in Vermont without even being found guilty the unchecked Department of Corrections treated me like I deserved the death penalty now my story is just one of one example of the lesson prevailing standard of care provided by the Vermont DOC and there are hundreds and hundreds of other stories that will never be told or heard it is time for the state of Vermont and the courts to hold the DOC accountable for their failures with healthcare instead of providing any kind of rehabilitation they kill us let our voices be heard in the meeting rooms of this legislature and not the voices of the DOC employees who sit self-righteously telling everyone what they want to hear instead of the truth last Friday any are from DOC like in the health care to quote the highest level of blue cross blue shield and quote another blatant lie if that were in any way even remotely true I would not be standing here today I would have received the treatment my diabetic specialist ordered I'd still have all my teeth and my average blood sugar level would never have risen to a terminal state now I used to think that this was the greatest country in the world but how does our government allow its people to go without to be treated like we're less than insets aren't we all human beings now I've already taken to this this to the courts hoping that the penalty on petitioning for will make them realize that there are consequences for denying us our basic human rights we need to hold them accountable Nick Demmel Max Titus Michaela Merrill Marisa King Travis Weaver Dr. Fisher Centurion vital core well path and the like cannot be given any more passes need to stop allowing certain departments and officials to be exempt we need to make them pay the entire Department of Corrections needs to be corrected we need to stop letting them get away with torture and murder need to remember health care is a human right and each of us is human thank you much David our next speaker is Tiffany Harrington from free her my name is Tiffany Harrington and I live in Burlington am I talking right my phone yes I work with the free however month campaign as a directly impacted person informally incarcerated and I was under supervision of DOC for 15 years I'm a single mom of five boys to which I had while in jail over the past couple years I've seen more and more people I know from when I've lived in Barry or from being incarcerated homeless on the streets with no place to go many have turned to substance use something they didn't do when they had stability in a home it's a crush not the original problem this is a health care crisis that connected to the housing crisis incarceration feeds into that as well being incarcerated is inherently traumatic when you are incarcerated you lose your family job friend home everything the state now has to pay for children DCF custody which is much more expensive than keeping them with their parents the ultimate result of incarceration especially of a parent or caregiver or caretaker is a person who is much more likely to be unsuccessful in life and that ripple effect goes out to their families their children and their community the state wants to spend a hundred and fifty million dollars to build a four jail prison complex instead of spending that money on reentry housing or long-term housing it's millions out of the general fund the same fund we use for school renovations and many other things our state has turned down school renovations in favor of building an unnecessary prison let's invest in our families our community not in a prison complex there's only about eighty nine women in the whole state were incarcerated and half of them are just being detained meaning they have not been convicted of anything everyone knows that Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility in South Burlington which is where all the women in the state go currently needs to be torn down and it's not safe to be inhabited by humans and it's just not a safe place to live for example a while I was there we experienced a water main break there is poop flying around the entire like floating around the entire building those were our living quarters we didn't have running water not for the bathroom not to eat not for anything we had to fight to get bleach to properly clean and there's so many alternatives to incarceration and many of them already exist in our state for example pathways to housing or COSA expanding those programs or creating others that offer housing case management health care mental health services would be more beneficial than putting people in jail we're calling on legislators to support age 40 age 445 the prison construction moratorium bill to prevent the state from breaking ground on the new prison for at least five years to give us time to change their plan we're calling on them to support age 438 alternative to incarceration bill give Vermont a chance to shift spending priorities to the things our communities really need to thrive housing health care childcare education transportation food when I was incarcerated I almost died due to medical neglect I gave birth to my youngest son by C-section after my fifth high-risk pregnancy I preeclampsia for four out of five of them prison staff was sent very specific instruction on how to care for me after a major surgery including checking my blood pressure every four hours which they didn't want and not again for two weeks only after being forced by the ACLU to do so it was so bad I almost died by the time I rushed me to the hospital in an ambulance and a minute I was admitted for a week and a half because they couldn't get my blood pressure down I have organ damage and they were concerned about brain damage I lost consciousness on the way to the hospital and I was having seizures all while I was extremely depressed after having my baby baby taken out of my arms I was only incarcerated at this time because I couldn't afford a pre-approved residence and it was so sad I wanted to die no one checked on me I was maxed out two months later now I can't get the assistance other people get for housing like vouchers and subsidy although I do have custody of my kids if you're like me you fall through the cracks I've been homeless with my children and I'm on the verge of being homeless now with a four-year-old the state has the power to help but instead they put hurdle after hurdle in front of you I get discriminated against I've been sexually harassed and assaulted and made fun of for my physical disability all of these things happen just because people don't report it doesn't mean it's not happening people are scared of retaliation especially under supervision I urge people to support alternatives to incarceration and reimagining an investment in our communities our society and ourselves we have one of the highest rates of incarceration per capita and there's no reason there needs to be like this let's shake people like humans instead of taking away their basic rights all the archaic systems we are discussing today have one thing in common they have failed the people and are more interconnected people realize one cannot work unless they all work these systems are made to keep people down and on that level they are working exactly how they are intended that's why we're all standing here today we're standing up for a basic right it's never okay to treat us like we're not equal or less than let's invest in our communities each other in our future thank you thank you so much for sharing your story all right and our last speaker is going to be in Sanko of the Green Mountain self-advocates hi my name is Sanko I'm here to talk about the staff need and money for the what we do for the for the agency or what we do with everyday life I work for Green Mountain self-advocacy I have a disability I got a service I'm I'm very proud of what I'm doing with my life by the same time people need a money to support other people not just for like everyday life also for what they live for what they do and we need to pay them more money to order to support us for agency and also what we do with our job and that give us a more opportunity to what we do every agency have a different way of doing them but money come to our own doing our own way and we need a support from our staff so we need to pay them more money because right now some of the agency they don't have a opportunity to support other clients because in the Sunder agency we do know like they are turnover staff is happening and so we need to pay more money to order to support us and also I came from different culture and because that many people come from different background and so one is come to a different background and people need to understand what we are doing like for example in my culture we do our own different religions in the United States they are different religions we are doing them too like for example in the Christmas time we don't do a Christmas holiday in my culture and those are the Sunder example of what we need to understand like one is come to that different culture and religion and one is we what we do every day we need to understand what we are doing for our soul too and also for some of us when we go to the hospital that don't need to understand what we are trying to do because sometimes don't need to understand that different type of barrier one is come to that that make casing about what we do and also about understanding what we try to tell them like sometimes misunderstandings happen to doubt that I'm with you like every time we need to understand what kind of support we need and so today I'm really proud of what I'm very here to what you have to say so I'd like to say thank you for listening to me everyone so Vermont law states that our economic policies will recognize every person's need for health housing dignified work education food social security and a healthy environment that's a quote from Vermont law is that being upheld it says that the state will ensure that all residents have access to quality health services at costs that are affordable is that being upheld no no it's not the denial of our basic needs our human rights is policy violence and we will not be silent anymore we have one more activity before closing during the pandemic the nonviolent Medicaid Army sent hundreds of petitions to Governor Scott asking him to keep people housed and on Medicaid through the end of the public health emergency we never heard back now 24,000 people in our state have been caught off of Medicaid and thousands more could be stripped of their health care by the summer now there is an important bill in the Vermont house that would expand Medicaid h721 and we'll be pushing to make sure it moves us towards Medicaid for all or universal health care but right now it's the Scott administration that's stripping people of their health care and as the chief executive of our state Phil Scott has the power to stop this today I'm holding a petition or I'm not holding a petition but Aaron is signed by over 300 Vermont residents calling on Governor Scott to put an immediate halt to Medicaid cutoffs and work with the legislator to implement Vermont's universal health care law act 48 to invite everyone including the press to walk with us over to Governor Scott's office and deliver these signatures and calling him to take action I took back The positions are going to be delivered to Governor Scott The petitions are going to be delivered to Governor Scots. We were not allowed to speak with them. Forward together. Not one step back. Forward together. Song from the New York Times Where? Under my feet. Where? Under my feet. Under my feet. Under my feet. And your election system will fall over me. I went out to the stage. I took back what is known from me. I took back my dignity. Under my feet. Under my feet. Under my feet. Under my feet. Under my feet. Under my feet. Under my feet. Under my feet. Under my feet. Under my feet. Under my feet. Under my feet. Under my feet. I'd like to say at the front, in case there's any reporters that want to ask us questions, but just want to thank everyone else for coming. I know folks have meetings scheduled with their legislators over lunch, lunch so yes just thank everyone for being here.