Congratulations on Health Care Reform!

Congratulations on Health Care Reform Passing!

Thank you for your hard work! IWJ- NE is proud to have been part of the passing of health care reform for America. Our organizing and advocacy from the faith perspective helped turn the tide to get all sixty votes for the Senate Bill that was passed by the house on Sunday evening and signed into law by President Obama. Although it is not as comprehensive on affordability as we would like, it still makes historic progress in fixing our health care system to serve the people instead of insurance companies profit margins. The bill will provide coverage to 32 million uninsured, eliminate exclusion for pre-existing conditions, reducing drug costs for Seniors, and allow young people until the age of twenty six to stay on their parent’s plan.

IWJ-NE recently coordinated with Nebraska Appleseed on an action in Lincoln with our mask project that Rev. Debra McKnight help put together. Channel 7 Picked up the action http://www.ketv.com/video/22859031/index.html

IWJ-NE in Washington DC

At the same time as the Interfaith Vigil, a small group of IWJ-NE leaders joined a larger group of Nebraskan delegates to Washington DC for Ecumenical Advocacy Days which focused on immigration issues. The conference was full of educational workshops and it was a great opportunity to network with other key national leaders.

On Sunday evening IWJ-NE joined the march for immigration reform on the National Mall with over 250,000 people. What an impressive sight to see people busing in from across the country to join this cause for just reform for those who have so often been place on the Margins. On Monday, IWJ-NE joined other Nebraskan leaders in lobbying for reform to our congress people and our Senators.

Stations of the Cross: A Migrant's Journey

On March 21 at First United Methodist Church in Omaha, over 140 individuals joined together to show support for immigrants and to call for immigration reform this year. Luis Marcos (Guatemala), Renata Palmer (Czech Republic) and Rage Mohamed (Somalia) shared their stories of migration explaining the journey each took to arrive in the United States. Their stories represent just a narrow slice of the multitude of roads that migrants travel to come to the U.S.

The event featured photography by Michael Hyatt who has shared many powerful images of migration on the U.S./Mexican border. Participants were given opportunities for advocacy and made pledges to call legislators during the upcoming recess to discuss the importance of immigration reform this year.

Please check out these links to see a clip of the event from KMTV Channel 3 News and from the Omaha World Herald:

http://s3.amazonaws.com/NDSMediaArchiveBucket/94DE2811-3619-4BD0-8483-82BB1EB5C0C4.wmv

http://www.omaha.com/article/20100322/NEWS01/703229915

Still Working for Health Care Reform!

Although the situation has continued to be a struggle to get health care reform. Interfaith Worker Justice has continued to be involved and to put pressure on our representatives to make the right decision. The day before Senator Nelson made the historic decision to be the 60th vote to stop debate and vote for the health care reform, the Interfaith Worker Justice sent a letter with 24 signatories of faith leaders in support of the Casey Amendment, since Nelson's version of the house's Stupak did not get enough votes to pass in the Senate. The Casey Amendment still segregated public funds from being used from abortions, but also provided funding for low-income pregnant women. In those two essential days we let Senator Nelson know that there are progressive faith leaders that care about health care reform. We got an Op-Ed in the Omaha World Herald and an article in the Lincoln Journal Star providing our support as shown below.

http://www.omaha.com/article/20091218/NEWS0802/712189999/-1/NEWS08

http://www.journalstar.com/news/state-and-regional/govt-and-politics/article_dd4da7ee-ec3a-11de-b783-001cc4c002e0.html

Some of our faith leaders, Fr. Jack McCaslin (below) and Rev. Frederick McCullough, AME, (soon to be released) were willing to support Senator Nelson's decision by being part of a TV ad from the Nebraskan Democratic Party in support of Nelson's vote.

We must keep up the work for Health Care Reform. Call your Representatives today!!