Shanna Goldman, our Organizing Director, and Chris Scoville, our Capital District Organizer, opened the conference with a dynamic discussion on far reach of economic concerns. Leaders then chose among 3 workshops that were divided into 2 days. Jess Wisneski, our Legislative Director, and Cynthia Ward, Northeast Action Executive Director, moderated the health care workshop. Cleo Oliver, Citizen Action Campaign Coordinator, and Carin Schiewe, Northeast Action Field Director, moderated the civic engagement workshop. Karen Scharff, our Executive Director, managed the education workshop.

Citizen Action staff loved the level of engagement–especially since we all put so many hours into organizing the conference.

The engagement, though, reached into the Internet this year. We live-streamed portions of the conference and actively used Twitter and Facebook. Leaders especially loved the Twitter projection. Be sure to click on the link to see what the buzz was all about.

We ended the conference on a riveting and uplifting note. William McNary, President of USAction – our national affliate-, brought everyone to their feet and some even to tears. Luckily, in yet another example of technological versatility, Charlie Albanetti, our Communications Director, captured this provocative engagement on video.

Here is a collection of photos that highlight our very active weekend:

We’re also embedding the informational binder that each attendee received. The pages highlight our major projects and is chock full of useful summaries. Please take a look!

2010 Leadership Conference Binder Docs

A few weeks back, AQE launched a campaign going door-to-door in communities across the State to speak with voters about the proposed cuts. Six out of every 10 people we talked to actually sat down and wrote out a letter to their Senator in opposition to the cuts.

The Governor’s Budget Proposal included $1.4 billion in education cuts. The State Senate passed a Budget Resolution that didn’t restore a dime of that funding. The State Assembly then passed their Budget Proposal, which dropped the damage down to only $800 million.

Worst case scenario (i.e., if $1.4 billion is cut from the education budget): 15,000 teaching position will be eliminated. After-school programs will be eliminated. English as a second language (ESL) classes will be eliminated. Class sizes will balloon.

And, on top of all that, your property taxes will go up. By a lot.

The past two years haven’t been easy on New Yorkers. Ordinary folks across this State have made one sacrifice after another. The tanking of the economy – largely due to Wall Street’s greed and incompetence – has resulted in an increased (and consistently high) unemployment rate.

There’s no two ways about it – cuts to eduction will permanently hurt our children, and will make it harder for New York’s economy to rebound.

But, there’s an alternative. A temporary two-year banker’s bonus tax on compensation over $250,000 would bring in almost $7 billion back to the State, allowing for easy restoration of the proposed cuts to education.

After a press conference where some of the letters’ authors read their messages aloud, the group delivered the wagons to Senators Darrel Aubertine, John Bonacic, Brian Foley, Kemp Hannon, Craig Johnson, Owen Johnson, Jeffrey Klein, Kenneth LaValle, Frank Padavan, William Stachowski, and David Valeski.

Here’s some quotes from the letters:

We need you to do this for children like my grandchildren who will have a bleak future if you allow our district to suffer cuts of over $6million. My newest granddaughter Kacey is only 13 months old and I worry about what will be left of our schools by the time she is in the district if these cuts happen.
-Amparo Sadler, a Central Islip grand-parent, from her letter addressed to Senator Brian Foley

As a student in your district I think cutting the budget that will result in teachers getting laid off will be bad because less teachers will produce less students being taught. Wall Street is the same as you and I and they should pay their fair share to rebuild this economy.
-Jacob Merrill, a 9th grader at Oswego High School, from his letter addressed to Senator Darrel Aubertine

If we do not ask Wall Street to help stop the pending school budget cuts our children will be deprived of the necessary requirements needed to succeed and they will fall further behind. In order to keep our children competitive in the 21st century job market, we need Senator Valesky and his colleagues to prioritize their education.
-Gerald R. Lotierzo, a resident of the 49th Senate District, from his letter addressed to Senator David Valesky

As press clips come in from today’s event, I’ll post them below.

WNYT NBC 13 – Senators Receive Some Handy Advice

Protest in Times Square, NYC

On Tuesday, activists in dozens of state across the US protested the unfair, profiteering, and crisis-causing practices of big private insurance companies in America. In New York, Citizen Action focused on two of our state’s worst: United Healthcare and GHI/HIP.

We held protests in New York City, Long Island, Albany, Binghamton, and Buffalo, and used the findings of two new reports released by our research affiliate, the Public Policy and Education Fund of New York, to show that these corporations are the worst of the worst when it comes to customer service and protecting their profits by using ratepayer dollars to oppose reform.

Big insurance companies make profits by overcharging policyholders, raising prices for individuals, families, employees, and unions, and denying people health care.

The result:

• more than 47 million Americans are uninsured
• 45,000 people in America die every year because they don’t have health insurance
• tens of thousands of families are torn apart and thrown into poverty every year due to medical bankruptcy
• with the economic depression, Americans are losing their jobs and consequently are losing coverage

America’s health care system is broken – and every minute we delay fixing it, more lives are being ruined and lost.

Here’s some facts about United Healthcare and the way they operate:

• Based on complaints to the State Insurance Department, United Healthcare has the third worst ranking of the state’s 46 insurance companies. These complaints surrounded issues like the company failing to provide coverage and promised benefits and failing to make payments to doctors and hospitals
• United Healthcare gets the worst ranking on the 29 private (i.e., for-profit) New York insurers
• In 2008, the Insurance Department upheld 559 complaints against United Healthcare (as opposed to Aetna’s 200)
• In 2007, United Healthcare agreed to a $4 million settlement with the state Insurance Department that included a three-year improvement plan to eliminate the company’s errors in claims processing. This was the largest settlement ever entered into with a health insurer involving practices that had harmed customers
• In 2006, after years of findings of improper business practices that remained uncorrected, the Department of Health took the rare step of banning United Healthcare’s managed care plan from enrolling most types of new customers

And they oppose reform. At least some of those people expressing opposition to health care reform this past summer at Congressional town hall meetings were insurance company employees, a portion of whom were influenced and even intimidated into taking action by their employer. Several media outlets reported that United Health Group (United Healthcare’s parent company) sent a letter to its employees on company stationary asking them to attend town hall meetings and write letters and make phone calls to Congress. The employees were given anti-reform talking points to use.

And, here’s some facts about GHI/HIP and what they do:

• GHI HMO is the worst of the 13 HMOs in New York when it comes to customer complaints to the Insurance Department, and 46th of 46 for all categories of insurers
• GHI’s indemnity plan is 41 of 46, and HIP HM is 42 of 46 in consumer complaints – right near the bottom
• In 1999, the New York Attorney General found that HIP was illegally requiring prior authorization for emergency service. Prior authorization for EMERGENCY SERVICE!

GHI/HIP also opposes reform. David Abernethy, EmblemHealth’s senior VP for governmental affairs, is a member of the policy committee of America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), which is the major insurance industry group opposing reform. AHIP spent $7.5 million on lobbying Congress in 2008 and already spent another $2 million in the first quarter of 2009 – obviously in opposition to reform.

At the events Tuesday, we called on these companies to:

1. Adopt a plan to radically improve poor consumer complaint records
2. Terminate any policy or company incentive that rewards employees financially or otherwise for denying care or rejecting claims
3. Not use any employees or company resources (our premium dollars) to defeat legislation to expand health care coverage

Our message spread. Here’s a tv piece from Binghamton and an article from Long Island.

Here’s a great video from the protest in Kingston, NY, organized by MoveOn.org:

Here’s the report on United Healthcare:

And the one on GHI/HIP:

It appeared that the Administration we worked so hard to elect was backing away from our strongest mandate – true health care reform through a strong public option.

But every cloud has a silver lining!

My group in Buffalo, BuffalObama, that worked so very hard from March of 2007 until election day and after, is re-energized.  And it’s not just Buffalo, across the state the grassroots organizers who have been continuing to meet, open offices, make phone calls and support health care reform initiatives are ready to speak up.  We are not going to lose this fight!

So, if you were involved in the campaign – knocking on doors, making calls, holding signs, sending in money – it’s time to do it again!  Let’s not waste the significant time we put in during the election with inside the beltway politics and insurance company money.  We proved we could overcome all of that during the election – we can do it again!

Call your Citizen Action office right now and ask what you can do – we have LOTS of events happening and each one is important to show that our support for a public option is louder and larger than the voices of the right wing crazies.

The Committee of concerned residents and parents worked together to develop a platform consisting of specific policy reforms.

They teamed up with students from Hofstra’s Law School to create policy language around “no nepotism” and “conflict of interest” – two key issues on the platform that had been developed.

These new policies would focus on how the District hires staff – ensuring those most qualified are hired.

Members of the Committee then presented the policies that had been developed to the Board of Education.

The presentation was followed up with a storm of handwritten letters and phone calls  from parents, grandparents, students, and community members to members of the Board asking for support of the policies.

Now, the policies are in their final stages of implementation: Committee members will be meeting with the Board’s Policy Committee to review the policies and implement them in District operations.

To celebrate their victory, LIPC hosted a family barbecue and invited the whole community. Over 60 people attended and enjoyed the day.