News

As this CWA Newsletter closed out, some Senate Republicans led by Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) were continuing to stall discussion of the bill to provide health care and compensation to Sept. 11 responders at Ground Zero. The legislation would help ailing police officers, firefighters, telecom workers and others ? including many CWA members -- who were on the ground in the earliest days following Sept. 11.

Last Thursday, HHS released new guidelines for low-cost, low-benefit health plans that are expected to be phased out and replaced by more generous insurance under the Affordable Care Act.

The CEO of the California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS), the largest non-federal purchaser of health benefits in the country, sent a letter Friday to the Secretary of Health and Human Services listing the ways that the Affordable Care Act has already benefited the program?s enrollees.

Hundreds of TNG-CWA journalists at The Associated Press are taking part in a national "byline boycott" this week, removing their names from stories and photos to protest the news service?s attempt to slash pension and medical benefits.

On Monday a Federal Judge in Virginia ruled that the health care reform provision known as the individual mandate, whereby all Americans who can afford health care coverage but go without must pay a tax penalty, was unconstitutional. This ruling follows two other recent federal court cases ? one in Lynchburg, VA and the other in Detroit, Michigan -- that found this provision to be constitutional.