The Service Employees International Union, the largest single representative of healthcare workers in the U.S., Thursday lashed out against the current direction of the healthcare reform debates.
In a letter to SEIU members, union President Andy Stern said he believes that “this is the moment when we must stand as one and say enough.” Frustrated by the concessions made in recent weeks to more moderate members of the chamber, SEIU leadership Thursday called on the more-than 2 million members of their union to lay out their concerns with the healthcare bill to the Senate. He urged members of the SEIU, members of the Senate and President Obama alike to continue to fight for reform. He did not go so far as to encourage them to reject the bill.
Stern also made a thinly veiled reference to Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), who has garnered a lot of criticism in recent days for his role in stripping both the public option and the Medicare Buy-In plan from the Senate healthcare bill. In his letter, which was peppered with Obama campaign references, Stern noted that, “at the very moment that we saw real and meaningful changes within our grasp, one senator came forward to say ‘no we can’t.’”
