Issued November 10, 2020
Today, SEIU released the following statement from International President Mary Kay Henry in anticipation of the U.S. Supreme Court hearing on California vs. Texas, the lawsuit spearheaded by 18 Republican attorneys general and the Trump administration as part of their ongoing efforts to sabotage America’s healthcare system.
SEIU International President Mary Kay Henry:
“This lawsuit is the final battle of the Trump administration’s crusade to rip healthcare away from working people and our families. It is unconscionable that in the middle of a global pandemic when affordable healthcare and health equity are more important than ever, this administration is hell-bent on thrusting the American healthcare system into disarray.
Over and over again, Republicans have tried everything they can think of to repeal the Affordable Care Act. They have treated healthcare as a partisan issue, rather than what it really is: a matter of life or death for millions of people — especially for the Black and brown communities that have been hardest hit by COVID-19. Now, in the final months of Trump’s presidency, as our country battles three simultaneous racial, economic and public health crises, Senate Republicans knowingly jammed through a justice who is poised to be the deciding vote in this lawsuit to take away healthcare.
On Nov. 3, working people turned out in record numbers and elected Joe Biden as our next president. Unlike Donald Trump, Biden has put forward plans and proposals that would make healthcare — including long term care — more affordable for everyone, no matter where they work, who they are or where they live. The plans Biden proposes would make a world of difference for essential workers like Celeste Thompson, a home care worker and the first Montana resident to enroll in Medicaid after the state expanded the program. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris propose to expand Medicaid in all states and invest in caregiving workers, like Celeste, who allow seniors and people with disabilities to live at home with dignity and independence.
Even with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s leadership, it will take years for our country to recover from Donald Trump, and we will not forget this political game he played with working people’s lives. Striking down the ACA, taking healthcare away from millions and stripping away protections for people with pre-existing conditions, will send us backward, and the consequences would be deadly. Today, the Supreme Court has an opportunity to make things right and end this senseless attack on working people once and for all.
SEIU has a decades-long commitment to quality, affordable healthcare for all. We will keep fighting until we win healthcare for all, including long term care, and ensure that all working people have the opportunity to join together in a union to bargain a better life.”
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The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) unites 2 million diverse members in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico. SEIU members working in the healthcare industry, in the public sector and in property services believe in the power of joining together on the job to win higher wages and benefits and to create better communities while fighting for a more just society and an economy that works for all of us, not just corporations and the wealthy. www.seiu.org