Emily Marie Ahtúnan, Mari Cordes, and others, as people with disabilities, health care providers, and people who passionately believe in human rights talk about why they're protesting, willing to go to jail, in some cases putting their lives on the line, to save health care and the moral/ethical compass of this troubled nation.
Sarah Wendell-Launderville, Executive Director of the Vermont Center for Independent Living, and Ed Paquin, Executive Director of Disability Rights Vermont, Vermont's designated protection & advocacy agency for people with disabilities, and Vermont's Mental Health Care Ombudsman, explain that Republican legislation would force states to gut Medicaid coverage for 74 million American working families, children, seniors, people with disabilities, and veterans. In Vermont:
Joseph M. Schwartz, a professor of political science at Temple University, a national vice chair of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), and author of Coalition Politics and the Fight for Socialism, talks about the reasons for the rapid growth of DSA to become the largest U.S. socialist organization in the U.S. since the 1940s.
Jessica Early, a nurse and Rights & Democracy healthcare organizer explains that what the House of Representatives has done – taking the rudiments of an entirely inadequate national insurance system, and shredding it – represents the greatest assault on low and moderate-income Americans of any law in modern times. The AHCA would roll back the expansion of Medicaid, and eliminate coverage that more than 70,000 Vermonters rely on.
Rights and Democracy leader, Vickie Lampron reports on People’s Action's Founding Convention: Rise Up: From Protest to Power. Peoples's Action organizations are campaigning for transformative change at every level – from cities to statehouses to the halls of Congress.
Rights and Democracy climate organizer, Laura Mistretta, talks about the People's Climate March and the campaign for Energy Democracy.