AFT Joins Coalition to deliver 500,000 Petitions Opposing Price Nomination

WASHINGTON—Today, the AFT joined with progressive allies to deliver more than 500,000 petitions to the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) urging legislators to oppose Rep. Tom Price’s nomination as secretary of health and human services.

AFT President Randi Weingarten sent this letter to Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.); and AFT member Bernie Gerard, RN, vice-president, Health Professionals and Allied Employees/AFT/AFL-CIO joined a diverse delegation of organizations to hand-deliver the 500,000 petitions to Ranking Member Patty Murray (D-Wash.).

Gerard said, “AFT health professionals and educators take care of the health and well-being of our communities. We know that treatment is more difficult—and more expensive—when patients delay care because they can’t afford it. We know it is more difficult for children to learn when their illnesses go untreated because their families don’t have health coverage. Eliminating the protections and coverage provided by the ACA, privatizing Medicare, and block-granting Medicaid threaten the health of millions of America’s families, and threaten our hospitals and state budgets too. We simply can’t afford the high cost of Tom Price as secretary of health and human services. 

“Nurses want to expand health services to our communities through our practice, and that too, Tom Price opposes. His policies benefit wealthy donors and private interests, not America’s working families. Tom Price is simply wrong for America’s health.

“Thank you, Sen. Murray, for the opportunity to present petitions from AFT nurses, health professionals and educators opposing Tom Price as secretary of health and human services.”