Lynners join health rally

BOSTON – Members of the Lynn-based North Shore Labor Council joined a rally over the weekend to call attention to the need for health care reform.Rosa Blumenfield, a council organizer, said the event was meant to send a message to Sen. John F. Kerry and newly elected Sen. Scott Brown.Alex Brown, vice president of IUE-CWA Local 201 in Lynn, urged the crowd to battle for their benefits. “The fight for health care is about who pays. A bill in the U.S. Senate is trying to get workers to pay by taxing our health care benefits,” she said. “I have two things to say about that: it’s bad policy and it’s bad politics. We need reform that goes at the waste and profit of the big pharmaceutical companies, insurers that deny little Suzie her operation and elite hospital CEOs whose profits and salaries are sky high.” Brown said workers’ hard-won health care benefits should not be taxed.About 150 participants marched through the streets of Boston. The rally was co-sponsored by the Health Care for America Now coalition. The marchers delivered score cards to the Boston offices of both senators, letting them know how their constituents feel they are doing on health care reform, Blumenfield said.The score cards highlighted five points, describing what health care activists believe health care reform should encompass.The points were:u Covers everyone when they need it;u Is affordable to everyone, in and out of work;u Holds insurance companies accountable;u Includes fair funding, not taxing middle-class benefits;u Has the choice of a public option to hold costs down.Kerry scored well on all five points, except fair funding, said Blumenfeld, adding that the senator supports the health benefits excise tax that unions and health care activists oppose.Sen. Brown scored poorly on all five points, except for his opposition to the excise tax, although he offered no alternative, Blumenfeld said.