Opinion

Testimony on H.341, Globalization Impact Bill

Before Joint Committee on Economic Development & Emerging Technology 

Commonwealth of Massachusetts 

9 June 2009

I thank the chairperson [Senator Karen Spilka] for this opportunity to share my views.

My name is David Lewit. I am a social psychologist living in Boston, and come here as an active member of the Boston-Cambridge Alliance for Democracy. 

On June 12, Rep. Edward Markey became the seventh member of the Massachusetts Congressional delegation to co-sponsor H.R. 676, the "Medicare for All" approach to health care reform written by Rep. John Conyers.

Rep. Markey joins Massachusetts Representatives Michael Capuano, William Delahunt, Barney Frank, James McGovern, John Olver and John Tierney and 75 other members of Congress as a co-sponsor of H.R. 676.

Medford, MA - On May 11, a group of more than 50 prominent Seventh District constituents sent a letter urging Rep. Ed Markey (D) to co-sponsor HR 676, the national Medicare-for-All bill.

The letter concluded: "Whatever health reform Congress does consider, we believe needs to be held up in comparison with a single-payer plan as the "gold-standard" for cost-efficient, equitable, and universal care. We need your leadership in supporting and advancing this ideal, and building momentum for truly sustainable, universal health care in this country."

BOSTON/Dorchester - Nearly 60 people demonstrated around the Suffolk County Jail in Boston (known as South Bay House of Corrections) on Sunday in protest of the detention of immigrants in that facility. The signs and the chants indicated what the protesters wanted: an end to the repression of immigrant workers and their families, legalization, family reunification. All this in the context of the commercial celebration of Mother's Day. The prisoners were fully aware of the presence of the demonstrators and banged their cell windows furiously.