Final call: Next week join PPF-PA’s Winter Reading Group!

Final call: Next week join PPF-PA’s Winter Reading Group!

This January and February, Put People First! PA hold our 3rd Annual Winter Reading Group. This year we’ll be studying the politics and economics of health care.

The Winter Reading Group is all about preparing the leaders of our organization for the work ahead in 2020. We’re going to grow the Nonviolent Medicaid Army this year. Studying the health care system and understanding the real reasons for why we can’t get the care we need, puts us in a position to help people see that their suffering isn’t their own fault, that they shouldn’t blame themselves, and why we have to organize together and fight to make healthcare a human right. The study will also connect our leaders in a deeper way than usual and let us get to know each other from across the state.

The Reading Group will help us study who we’re coming up against when we struggle for the human right to health care: Who our enemies are and also who our real friends are. It’ll help us understand the significance of our Health Care is a Human Right campaign and keep it on track.

We’ll meet on Tuesday nights for four weekly sessions starting in next Tuesday, January 14th going into mid-February. If you’re interested in participating in the 2020 Winter Reading Group, sign up here! The Reading Group is open to all members of Put People First! PA.

We did it! Over $11,500 in Year End Fundraising

We did it! Over $11,500 in Year End Fundraising! Thank you for your support.

Put People First! PA, being an organization of and for the working class, relies on everyday, working class folks for support of our work. This makes grassroots fundraising efforts extremely important. 

In mid-November, we began our year end fundraising push with a goal of $10,000 to be raised through a multi-faceted approach.  Our goal included funds raised through merchandise sales in our Etsy and Teespring shops, online fundraising through social media via member shares of infographics, fundraising through the enews appeal, and personal/family appeals around the holiday season.  Not only did we meet this goal of $10,000, we smashed it on our way to our final total of $11,500! 

PPF-PA would like to thank everyone who helped make this possible! Your efforts will continue to drive our work throughout 2020 and beyond!

PPF-PA Montgomery County stands with laid off Tower workers

Healthcare Profiteering Hurts Workers and Patients:

Put People First Stands with Laid-Off Workers 

at Chestnut Hill and Pottstown Hospitals

Join the fight for Healthcare as a Human Right with Put People First! PA

The Montgomery County Healthcare Rights Committee of Put People First! PA (PPF) stands with workers at Chestnut Hill and Pottstown Hospitals in the wake of Tower Health’s November 10th layoffs of over 70 clerical and intensive-patient care providers. The layoffs are part of an effort of “non-profit” Tower Health to maximize profits after its recent $50 million acquisition of St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children. PPF-PA believes that our lives and jobs as patients and workers shouldn’t be expendable in pursuit of a corporate bottom line. 

Pottstown and Chestnut Hill were two of six hospitals swallowed up by the giant hospital corporation, Tower Health, in 2017. Tower’s 2018 buyout of St. Christopher’s from billionaire Joel Freedman’s healthcare megacorporation, American Academic Health System, brought the number to seven.

Corporate takeovers, closings and consolidations of hospitals are happening all over the country, devastating workers and patients alike. The problem is that healthcare is a business: the enormous incomes of owners, CEO’s and shareholders depend on excluding the maximum number of poor, sick, uninsured and under-insured people – as well as laying off workers and exploiting the remaining with reduced wages, unsafe conditions and increased workloads. We must ask, why do executives take home massive incomes, while necessary and critical jobs are eliminated? Why does our country not provide healthcare for all, like many other nations around the world?  Because healthcare is not treated as a human right! The corporations do not see us, the poor and dispossessed of Pennsylvania, as dignified human beings worthy of care and secure, well-paid jobs. Put People First! PA denounces predatory healthcare profiteers like Tower Health and Joel Freedman. We will not get the jobs and healthcare we deserve without fighting together for it!

That is why Put People First! PA (PPF) is building a statewide grassroots movement of poor and dispossessed people who believe that healthcare is a human right. If you are personally affected by these layoffs as a patient or a worker, or are moved to fight for Healthcare as a Human Right, we want you to join us! We are uplifting our stories together, growing our statewide power and taking action together! Our Montgomery Country Healthcare Rights Committee (HRC) meets twice a month in Norristown. Join us!

To get involved, please contact:

Montgomery County Healthcare Rights Committee (HRC) of Put People First! PA: Co-coordinators: 

Jacob Butterly: 215-908-4661, jsjb.cwrite@gmail.com Jen Cox: 215-906-4087, jenkwru@yahoo.com

Lancaster City Council Action: “Fight Poverty Not the Poor”

The Lancaster Healthcare Rights Committee of Put People First! PA held an action at Lancaster City Hall on Tuesday November 12th, they had great support from those in the community. A previous Lancaster City Mayor expressed he stands by the Lancaster HRC and wishes the city would address the issue of poverty more seriously, something he said he advocated for, for years. The Lancaster HRC was also joined by students and professors from Franklin & Marshall College and members of the Party for Socialism and Liberation. Leaders of the Lancaster Healthcare Rights Committee shared personal stories and expressed concerns regarding poverty in Lancaster County, showing the need to cross the urban and rural divide to fight the interlocking injustices. The Lancaster HRC’s goal was to put a face to poverty and move past just looking at statistics. They demanded poverty be a primary focus in 2020, demanded a public meeting be called to discuss poverty in the Lancaster community and demanded the Lancaster City administration keep their promise they made to the community on May 20th 2019, regarding the old St. Joseph’s Hospital.

#HealthcareIsAHumanRight #UniteThePoor #PoorPeoplesCampaign

Links to video of remarks and complete City Council Meeting footage:

https://youtu.be/AyD3VzTmc7g

https://youtu.be/y-iTw85vNtY

https://youtu.be/ZgagjAO59fs

https://youtu.be/gVftOctzMKE)

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