TEXAS AFT LEGISLATIVE HOTLINE--FRIDAY, JULY 17, 2009
(copyright 2009 Texas AFT)
 
* AFT Members' Children Among Texas AFL-CIO Scholarship Winners
* U.S. House Takes Forward Step on National Health-Care Reform
 
AFT Members' Children Win Texas AFL-CIO Scholarships:  Three college-bound children of Texas AFT members are among the 31 students who have received $1,000 grants in the 2009 round of the Texas AFL-CIO Scholarship program. Applicants from affiliated union families were judged on the basis of academic achievement, extracurricular activities, a written test on organized labor, financial need, and personal interviews with scholarship committees from central labor councils across the state.
 
The three winners from Texas AFT households are: Andrea Hamann, daughter of McAllen AFT member John Hamann, ranked in the top 5 percent of her class at McAllen High School and headed for UT-Austin; Alicia McClung, daughter of Beverly McClung of our Alliance-AFT (Dallas) local, who ranked first in her class at Seagoville High School and plans to attend Austin College; and Blake Medley, son of Texas AFT member Connie Medley, ranked in the top 10 percent of his class at Santa Fe High School and bound for UT-Austin. Congratulations are due to all three of these scholarship recipients and their proud AFT union families.

The state labor federation already is gearing up for the 2010 scholarship round. Central labor councils will receive scholarship packets in October, and information and applications will be posted on the Texas AFL-CIO Web site, www.texasaflcio.org. Deadline for high-school seniors to apply for the 2010 program will be February 1, 2010. AFT parents of college-bound students, take note!
 
Health-Care Reform Takes a Step Forward in Congress:  Health-care reform legislation introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives this week confronts the current system's problems with a real commitment to providing high-quality, affordable health care for all Americans, AFT President Randi Weingarten says.
 
"Real health-care reform has twin goals--to provide affordable, high-quality health care and to cut the unsustainable growth of health-care costs--and the House 'tri-committee' bill will meet both goals," she says.
 
"The legislation provides coverage for 97 percent of all Americans and reforms the health-insurance system by removing the unacceptable exclusion for pre-existing conditions and by providing financial assistance to make this new insurance affordable," Weingarten continues. "The bill includes cost controls while retaining the employer-based system by creating a robust public plan that will compete with private insurers. It also has a strong 'pay or play' requirement to ensure that 160 million working Americans have insurance through their employer or the public plan. The bill also protects working families by not taxing their employer-provided insurance."
 
Weingarten says AFT strongly supports and urges adoption of the "America's Affordable Health Choices Act" and applauds its authors--Reps. George Miller (D-California), Charles Rangel (D-New York), and Henry Waxman (D-California)--for putting together this comprehensive health-care reform bill.
 
Enactment of national health-care reform could substantially reduce the burden of health-care costs that have been shifted increasingly onto the shoulders of active and retired school employees in Texas for the past decade. A bill similar to the U.S. House bill also is making headway in the U.S. Senate, but it faces competition from a less desirable alternative plan still being drafted in the Senate Finance Committee.
 
The full House could be voting on national health-care reform as early as this month, while Senate action is expected to take a bit longer. President Obama has made passage of comprehensive health-care reform his top legislative priority. If he succeeds, he will have achieved a goal that has eluded other presidents over the past 60 years. Be on the lookout for updates and action alerts as this battle--for it is a battle--continues.