Unity in Struggle: Our State in Health Reform

November 2009
Dear friends and colleagues:

Major health reform legislation is moving quickly this year. We at Korean Resource Center (KRC), Korean American Resource & Cultural Center (KRCC) and National Korean American Service & Education Consortium (NAKASEC) are disappointed about the exclusion of immigrants in these bills so far and some of the public conversations about who immigrants are. We have been pushing for a repeal of the federal five year waiting period for legal immigrants in low-income programs like Medicaid (known as Medi-Cal in California), as well as passage of health reform that includes all human beings. This is an important moment to be vocal to strengthen the current proposals, and to strongly oppose any potential anti-immigrant amendments and attacks. We have to be united in this struggle and continue to raise our voices. After all, it is about building a healthy and humane America together!

We believe that to make health reform affordable for America, we need public access to purchase the public option in the new marketplace. Like you, we believe that everyone who subsidizes the health system should be able to participate in it, and make informed health decisions, regardless of their immigration status.

In fact, we continue to mobilize our communities not only to lift the five-year bar, but to regenerate our own spirit for a longterm commitment to unity, fairness, and human rights:

• We are organizing a vigil in San Francisco on November 23rd to tell Speaker Nancy Pelosi to exercise her leadership in making sure that immigrants are treated fairly. The message will build around the Thanksgiving theme to work with the idea that Pelosi should not leave immigrants out of the table.
• Our community members are targeting Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and President Barack Obama through a petition drive, which we hope you will also participate in. Forms are also available for you to dowload

We hope to hand-deliver thousands of these petitions to Pelosi’s office on the 23rd and hope you will join us at this vigil.

Please let us know of your interest and we will continue to send you the materials you need and ensure that you can actively participate in the petition drive and vigil. Please contact Olivia Park for more information at opark@nakasec.org and/or 323-937-3703 x209.

Thank you for your time. We look forward to working together with you!

Sincerely,
KRC, KRCC & NAKASEC staff

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Read 평등하고 공정한 의료 개혁 촉구 (Unity in Struggle: Our State in Health Reform) in Korean.

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