news | contact us  
campaigns trainings about us toolbox links Ocean State Action
Ocean State Action spotlight

More Action Spotlights!

Text Box: Health Care Organizing Project Linking community, business, providers & labor for change!

Small Businesses for Health Care Reform!

 

Small businesses are the backbone of Rhode Island 's economy and the heart of communities across our state. Small businesses create jobs, deliver essential goods and services, and build local assets.

 

Despite these contributions, small businesses across Rhode Island are among the hardest hit by the escalating crisis in our nation's health insurance system. As small business owners, we believe this system is fundamentally broken. It's time to take action to fix it – for us, our families, our employees, and the communities we serve.

 

When it comes to health care, we cannot go it alone. We must stand together. We support a government guarantee of quality, affordable health coverage with good benefits and equitable access to health services for everyone in our nation.

 

We call on our state and federal governments to enact reforms that promote the health of small businesses and our communities by building a health care system that fulfills these principles:

 

Everyone In, No One Out: Our health insurance system should cover everyone. No one should be left behind.

Quality Coverage We Can Count On: Our insurance should deliver security by covering what we need, when we need it. No one should lose coverage when they get sick, change jobs or decide to start a new business.

Equitable: Everyone should have good health coverage, regardless of whether we run a small business or a Fortune 500 company.

Affordable : Our health care system needs fair, broad-based financing, and we need stable and predictable costs we can budget for. Everyone should contribute to health care costs based on their ability to pay.

Sustainable: The system must be efficient, focusing on prevention and wellness, including cost controls and incentives for improved health.

Accountable: The health care system should be transparent and accountable to the public. It should be designed to prioritize our health, not maximize industry profits.

Back to top

Text Box: As you have no doubt heard, the RI General Assembly worked through a firestorm of bills late into the night on Friday and finished with an all-day session on Saturday. Despite devastating across the board cuts and despite an overwhelmingly challenging environment for progressives and the issues we support, a victory for Ocean State Action, the Campaign for Rhode Island's Priorities, and for every Rhode Islander emerged during the final hours. Ocean State Action worked with Representative Peter Lewiss and Senator Teresa Paiva-Weed to push through the Tax Incentive Disclosure and Accountability Act on Saturday afternoon. This bill will arm the public and the General Assembly with information needed to make smart decisions about the state's hidden tax expenditure budget. It requires the Economic Development Council and others to ensure corporate subsidies that cost taxpayers millions in lost revenue actually result in jobs for Rhode Islanders. The bill mandates that corporations report annually on the number of jobs created and the wages and benefits provided, along with the number of resident Rhode Islanders employed that were promised in return for job development subsidies. It also requires that the Department of Revenue publish an annual unified economic development budget with analysis and recommendations to the public and to the general assembly. And, among other safeguards, the bill authorizes the Division of Taxation to deny credits to companies that fail to report. Please join us in thanking Representative Lewiss and Senator Paiva-Weed in taking this first step to get expensive corporate tax subsidies under control. Look for a detailed summary of the General Assembly session next week.

Ocean state action is a member of the Fair Tax Organizing Collaborative, a national coalition of organizations fight to close the wealth divide.  Click here to read the lastest Tax Fairness Newsletter that highlights Our work and the work of our allies across the United States.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Back to top

NEW Citizens for Tax Justice Report

Richest 1% gain the most from Bush tax cuts for capital gains & dividends!

The report: http://www.ctj.org/pdf/capgainsdivtaxcuts.pdf

Rhode Island Fact Sheet

A new report from Citizens for Tax Justice with state-by-state data shows how the benefits of these tax breaks are distributed among different income groups and examines available data on the revenue collected to see if revenues can actually increase in response to a tax cut.

The report finds that:

  • The majority of the benefits of these tax cuts go to the richest one percent in every state .
  • Revenue collected by the capital gains tax was much higher during the Clinton administration, when the tax rate on capital gains was higher.

Karen Malcolm, executive director of Ocean State Action states, “The timing of this report is important to understanding the economic woes we face here in Rhode Island . We see a significantly widening gap between rich and poor, a declining middle class that puts our small businesses at risk, and a structural state budget deficit that is used as an excuse for gutting Rhode Island 's social safety net and for steep increases in property taxes.”

* * * * *

The report: http://www.ctj.org/pdf/capgainsdivtaxcuts.pdf
State-by-state fact sheets: http://www.ctj.org/html/cgdiv0508.htm

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

About Ocean State Action

Ocean State Action is a coalition of progressive community organizations and labor unions that fights for social, economic, environmental, racial, and civil justice. (more)

************

Ocean State Action and Local Groups Join Nationwide Grassroots Health Care Campaign to offer bold new solution for health care reform

Health Care for America Now is a national grassroots campaign organizing millions of Americans to win a guarantee of quality, affordable health care for all.   We are grounded in organizations that can mobilize people at work, at home, in their neighborhoods, and online.

We're bringing together community organizers, nurses, doctors, small business owners, faith-based groups, organizations of people of color, and seniors who believe it's time we had an American solution that provides quality, affordable health care for everyone.  

We're offering a bold new solution that gives you real choice and a guarantee of quality coverage you can afford: keep your current private insurance plan, pick a new private insurance plan, or join a public health insurance plan.  

We're also calling for regulation on health insurance companies. We need to set and enforce rules that quash health insurance companies' greed once and for all.There is a huge divide between our plan and the insurance companies' plan for healthcare reform. We want to make sure you have the quality coverage you need at the price you can afford. They want to leave you alone to fend for yourself in the unregulated, bureaucratic health insurance market.

Our plan is affordable for people and business. Their plan is profitable for them. With no regulation, health insurance companies can and will charge whatever they want, set high deductibles, and continue to drop coverage when you get sick.   Now is the time to pick a side!

WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON?

READ THE STATEMENT OF COMMON PURPOSE

SEE THE LIST OF PARTNERS

THE TIME IS NOW TO DEMAND A GUARANTEE OF AFFORDABLE HEALTH CARE FOR ALL!!

JOIN US!

CLICK HERE

for a video link to ABC6 Coverage of RI HCAN

################

What can small business do to Help fix The broken Health Care system?

Small business owners are experts on the broken health care system.

No one knows as well as small business owners do how badly our health care system is broken. Small businesses are routinely left vulnerable to the premium hikes, benefit cuts, coverage denials and administrative nightmares that are commonplace in the health care system today.

The voices of Rhode Island 's small business owners need to be heard.

No small business owner acting alone can surmount these challenges. But together, we can make a difference. It will take hard work and commitment, but together we can do our part. That is the promise of a united voice of small business owners across Rhode Island coming together to fix the broken health care system.

 

Business Speaks Out on Health Care!

Ted Almon , president of the Claflin Company,

speaks at a news conference to protest the

proposed cuts to the state's RIte Care program

DHS proposal to trim

RIte Care rolls draws criticism

01:00 AM EST on Thursday, December 13, 2007

By Steve Peoples
Journal State House Bureau

Principles for Health Care Reform:

  • Rhode Island must preserve RIte Care to serve as a model towards affordable health care for all citizens that controls the escalation of costs and improves health outcomes.
  • Everyone deserves quality health care coverage without regard to income, employment, age, gender, race, locations, and health conditions.
  • Small businesses must not be asked to bear an unfair proportion of the cost of providing health insurance.