SEIU Thanks Bart Gordon for Standing Up to Special Interests on Healthcare Reform

The working women and men of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 205 expressed their appreciation for Rep. Bart Gordon’s leadership and courage in standing up for real health insurance reform for Tennessee.  On March 24, Local 205's political coordinator Mark Naccarato delivered a letter of thanks to Rep. Gordon's office and presented Gordon's district Chief Of Staff, Kent Siler, with a Local 205 button.

“By voting ‘yes’, Congressman Gordon stood up for working families, took on the insurance companies, and turned back the myth that the status quo of skyrocketing premiums and insurance denials was the best America could do,” Naccarato said.  "Thank you, Congressman Gordon for doing the right thing instead of rolling over for corporate special interests and the people who believe their lies.”

The House legislation will expand healthcare to 32 million uninsured Americans, halt insurance company abuses and discrimination, and deliver the largest middle class healthcare tax cut in history. As soon as the legislation is signed by President Obama, it will begin to deliver immediate benefits to working families in 2010, including:

• Insurance companies will no longer be allowed to deny care to children with pre-existing illnesses;
• Lifetime caps on health coverage will be lifted;
• Parents will be able to keep dependents on their insurance policies through age 26;
• Closing the ‘donut hole’ for seniors – the gap in Medicare drug coverage.

In the Tennessee delegation, Representatives Tanner, Davis, Wamp, Roe, and Blackburn voted against expanding care to millions of Americans and reducing the national deficit. "It’s clear that those politicians value protecting the profits of insurance companies more than they do improving the lives of Tennesseans or strengthening our state’s economy,” Naccarato said.