Media Advisory: Panel to discuss grassroots campaigns for universal health care

BUFFALO, N.Y. – The University at Buffalo Law School’s Buffalo Human Rights Center will sponsor a panel discussion on the growing people’s movement for a universal health care system that is equitably financed and provides health care as a public good, not a commodity, from 4:30-6 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 10, in Buffalo City Hall, 65 Niagara Square, room 1417.

In 2011, Vermont organizers won the country’s first-ever universal health care law by mobilizing a people-based “Healthcare Is a Human Right” campaign. That campaign changed what is considered “politically possible” in health care reform, inspiring similar campaigns in Maryland, Maine and Pennsylvania, which are now joined in a nationally coordinated “Healthcare is a Human Right Collaborative” designed to create a domino effect of universal health care wins across the country.

The panelists are:

• James Haslam of Vermont's Rights & Democracy, who led the fight in that state for the nation’s first state-wide commitment to creating a universal, publicly funded health care insurance program for all state residents.
• Cathy Albisa, executive director of the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative (NESRI), who led the launch of the “Healthcare Is a Human Right Collaborative” among four states working for the same kind of state-wide universal and publicly funded health care policy commitments and legislation.
• Myron Glick, MD, of Jericho Road Community Health Center on Buffalo's West Side, who is an expert in health care disparities/inequities in Buffalo and the urgent needs to address them on a policy level.
• Tara J. Melish, associate professor of law and director of the UB Buffalo Human Rights Center, who will serve as moderator.

In addition to the UB Buffalo Human Rights Center, the program is sponsored by Physicians for a National Health Program, Partnership for the Public Good, Open Buffalo, Coalition for Economic Justice, WNY Area Labor Federation, AFL-CIO, WNYCOSH and Physicians for Human Rights.