Summer is a sleepy time at the Supreme Court as most of the justices exit the scorching Washington heat.  Justice Stevens was known to keep busy on the tennis court while Justice Thomas often heads around the country in his RV.  As for Justice Kennedy, he regularly teaches abroad and others hit the speaking circuit.

So the quiet period between late June and the first Monday in October, when the annual case argument schedule begins, presents vacation opportunities for those who cover the Court as well.  But while little attention is paid to the Court during its annual “siesta,” appeals can and do get filed during this lull.

Amidst the hoopla over the debt-ceiling crisis, one of those appeals not surprisingly went almost unnoticed.  In fact, it rated no better than a minor story on page A-18 buried in a recent edition of The New York Times.  This appeal, though, will be front-page news if the justices choose to accept the case.  That’s because it marks the first legitimate challenge to the new health care law, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

On July 27^th, a petition was filed challenging a recent Sixth Circuit decision which upheld the constitutionality of the law.  The 2-1 decision was notable because the Cincinnati-based appellate court tends to be conservative, and one of the judges in the majority was Jeffrey Sutton, a one-time law clerk with Justice Scalia.

While there have been a number of federal district court rulings on the health care law in the past year, the Sixth Circuit stands by itself as the lone appellate court to have addressed the issue.   The Supreme Court typically agrees to hear a case only after there has been a circuit split among the appellate courts.  But that does not mean the health care law’s supporters should take comfort that the justices will necessarily sidestep this appeal.

Cases such as Citizens United and the more recent Wal-Mart opinion are clear examples of the Court reaching out to decide hot-button disputes in the absence of a circuit split.  And Chief Justice Roberts’ famed line about “wanting to decide cases on the narrowest grounds possible,” has not always matched his record or that of his colleagues.  That’s a fact of which the appellants are well aware.

So there is reason to believe the Supreme Court could wade into the health-care controversy, and sooner rather than later.  In fact, if the justices decided to grant this challenge, a ruling could come down late next spring as the 2012 presidential campaign season approaches its apex.

If there is one thing I learned from covering the Court for more than a decade, it is that predicting outcomes there is sometimes only slightly easier than taking your chances in Las Vegas or Atlantic City.  Few people are privy to what the justices really feel, and journalists are hardly among them.

But if the justices upon their return to Washington take up the appeal of this Sixth Circuit ruling in the absence of a conflict, chances are they are not doing so to affirm the outcome.  No matter what the result, however, it will have obvious ramifications for what health plans employers offer to their employees going forward.

Supreme Court review of some sort on the health care law eventually seems inevitable.  But if it happens at this still relatively early juncture, another partisan battle is a near certainty.  And things at the nation’s highest court will be quiet no longer.

About the Author: David Weisenfeld served as U.S. Supreme Court correspondent for LAWCAST from 1998 through June 2011.  During that time, he covered every employment law case heard by the Court, and also wrote and co-anchored the company’s employment law newscasts.  In addition, his work has appeared in the American Bar Association’s Supreme Court Preview magazine.

Politifact, the fact-checking web site of the St. Petersburg Times, announced the biggest lie of 2010. But it doesn’t stop there, the NYTimes, FactCheck.org and a number of other experts agree with Politifact’s analysis.

The lie? That the government will be taking over health care.

I’ll leave it to Politifact to debate the “why.” I’m more interested in the “how” and what we can learn from this that will help us to survive today’s challenging workplace.

Repetition was probably the one factor that pushed this phrase to the top of the list. In 2010 alone, “government takeover” was mentioned 28 times in the Washington Post, 77 times in Politico and 79 times on CNN. Add to this countless times on a variety of congressional and activist web sites.

Beyond your beliefs about health care, and the politics surrounding, is one simple fact, views can be shaped by a message being said over, and over, and over again.

Which reminds me of a previous blog that I wrote about Google. Remember, Google is not an arbiter of what’s true or not true, it’s fancy algorithms only can tell you what’s popular.

If you’ve ever locked horns with a nemesis at work, you’ll learn this lesson painfully. When someone has a lot of anger and time, they can do a huge amount of mischief at work by simply repeating something over and over again.

Which is why when someone starts spreading a mistruth about you at work, you need to respond to it. Because what could seem outrageous to everyone today, can become a “health care takeover” juggernaut in just a matter of days.

Listen to the grapevine. And take out your pencil to try to erase the parts that aren’t true, while you still can.

I’d hope that most of you don’t take this as a strategy to get ahead, but rather as insight about the dynamics of how negative messages can resonate. And more importantly, how their damage can be limited.

About The Author: Bob Rosner is a best-selling author and award-winning journalist. For free job and work advice, check out the award-winning workplace911.com. Check the revised edition of his Wall Street Journal best seller, “The Boss’s Survival Guide.” If you have a question for Bob, contact him via bob@workplace911.com.

On Mother’s Day in 1999, Custom Bus Charters’ bus driver Frank Bedell veered off a highway near New Orleans, killing 22 passengers and injuring 20 others. Just 10 hours before this trip, Bedell was treated at a local hospital for “nausea and weakness.” He had been treated at least 20 times in the 21 months prior to the accident, and 10 of those times involved hospitalization for “life-threatening” heart and kidney disease. You can read more about this horrific crash, which remains one of the nation’s deadliest bus crashes, at NOLA.com: Loopholes let sick man drive, safety board says. Also of interest: Breaking the law went with the job.

This accident brought the issue of the medical competence of commercial drivers to the public attention in a dramatic way. In its subsequent report of the accident after the investigation, The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determined that “…the probable cause of this accident was the driver’s incapacitation due to his severe medical conditions and the failure of the medical certification process to detect and remove the driver from service. Other factors that may have had a role in the accident were the driver’s fatigue and the driver’s use of marijuana and a sedating antihistamine.

The incident and investigation prompted NTSB to issue Safety Recommendations revolving around medical certification of commercial drivers.

How are we doing today?
Nearly a decade later, how are these safety measures designed to protect the public from medically unsafe commercial drivers working out? Not too well, according to a recent investigative report by News21, which was published by MSNBC in the article Truckers fit to drive — if a chiropractor says so: “From 2002, when the recommendations were made, through 2008, the last year for which data is available, there were at least 826 fatal crashes involving medically unqualified or fatigued drivers, according to a News21 analysis of the FMCSA Crash Statistics database.”

The article paints a scary portrait of a driver medical certification program that is pretty broken. Truck drivers can pop into roadside clinics to pick up certifications issued after a cursory examination by almost any health professional. And that’s a good scenario – drivers can also download online certificates and fill them out themselves or ignore the requirement entirely. Forgeries are a common occurrence. Being caught without a certificate might result in a slap-on-the-wrist fine. While there have been calls for a national registry for medical certification of commercial drivers, the idea has made little progress. It will probably take the next big incident to ignite public outrage to motivate any change.

For a resource on current regulations, see the US Department of Transportation Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s Medical Programs, which includes medical regulations and notices, including drug and alcohol testing.

The News21 story on commercial drivers is the third part in a series of four articles that deal with transportation and public safety. Here are the others:

Part 1: Driving While Tired: Safety officials are slow to react to operator fatigue:
“NTSB does not track fatigue-related highway accidents on a regular basis. But in 1993, the board commissioned a study expecting to learn about the effects of drugs and alcohol on trucking accidents. Investigators studied all heavy-trucking accidents that year and made an unexpected discovery: Fatigue turned out to be the bigger problem. NTSB Crash investigators said driver fatigue played a key role in a bus accident in Utah in 2008 that killed nine people returning from a ski trip.
The study found 3,311 heavy truck accidents killed 3,783 people that year, and between 30 percent and 40 percent of those accidents were fatigue-related.”

Part 2: Video in the cockpit: Privacy vs. safety
In 200, the NTSB added a recommendation for video recorders to be installed in commercial and charter planes to its “most wanted” list. Pilot unions and other groups have lobbied this safety measure. See this story’s sidebar article: Shhhh! Your pilot is napping

Part 4: Outsourcing safety: Airplane repairs move to unregulated foreign shops
“More maintenance has moved overseas. Airlines are not required to use regulated repair shops. Foreign repair stations can go five years between inspections, and even then are often tipped off that inspectors are coming. Manuals are in English, but not all the workers read English. Drug tests of workers are illegal in some countries.
A News21 analysis of Federal Aviation Administration data showed that about 15,000 accidents or safety incidents in all aviation travel can be attributed at least in part to inferior maintenance or repairs since 1973, when the FAA started keeping such records. In these accidents at least 2,500 people died and 4,200 were injured.”

Most wanted list: transportation safety improvements
The NTSB keeps a most wanted list of transportation safety improvements, in which it makes recommendations for critical safety improvements for various transportation sectors. Recommendations are designed to improve public safety and save lives, but many have been on the list for years. In some cases, individual states may have requirements, but these recommendations are national in scope. While issues on the “most wanted list” are pending, individual employers might use the list as best practice guidance for safety programs to limit exposure both for workers compensation and other liability issues that might arise from commercial transportation accidents.

You can find more reports on transportation and public safety at News21, “a national initiative led by 12 of America’s leading research universities with the support of two major foundations” with a purpose of furthering in-depth and investigative reporting. In 2010, one of the main areas of focus has been Breakdown: Traveling Dangerously in America.

This article was originally published on Workers Comp Insider.

About the Author: Julie Ferguson is an insurance industry consultant with more than 20 years experience developing and implementing communications programs for workers compensation, workplace health & safety, employee communications, and general insurance programs. She founded and serves as editor for the nation’s first insurance weblog, Lynch Ryan’s Workers Comp Insider. She also founded and manages HR Web Café, a weblog for ESI Employee Assistance Group; Consumer Insurance Blog for the Renaissance Insurance Group; and is one of the administrators of Health Wonk Review, a bi-weekly health policy carnival. If you have a question for Julie, you can reach her at jferguson@lynchryan.com.

This week in a Pensacola, FL courtroom, lawyers representing the Attorney Generals of at least 19 states will argue about the recently passed national health insurance plan that requires all citizens to have health insurance. [BTW, this is a Workplace911 topic because the majority of funding of health care continues to come from the workplace]

Think of it as tea party heaven. The draconian effort to force health care on all US citizens will finally get it’s day in court. Yippee.

But why stop here? I’d like to see the same government-funded lawyers, ah don’t you love all those libertarians using public-funded civic servants to stop public funding of health care as an unnecessary burden? Did anyone ever think to use private lawyers to fight this case? Apparently there are still many places where modern day libertarians are comfy living on the dole. I think there is a word for that, socialist.

But I digress, I’d like them to go after car insurance next.

Why should law-abiding citizens be forced to have auto insurance? It’s crazy, unnecessary and not at all what our founding fathers had in mind.

Mandatory car insurance? Are you kidding me? Let’s let the free market handle it.

Sue, baby, sue. Just please be sure to make auto insurance your next target. Please do it for us.

Okay, that was all a bit tongue-in-cheek, although for the life of me I don’t get that saying. Where else is my tongue supposed to be? And speaking of tongues, I wish those Attorneys General would stifle theirs.

Let’s look at my car insurance analogy for a moment. What if car insurance was optional? I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t want to get on the road knowing that if someone hit me and it was 100% their fault, I would still have to sue them to get any compensation for the damage that they created.

If you thought riding the bumper cars at the state fair was fun, wait until you see our highways without auto insurance.

I know health care is different, because if someone gets a heart attack and ends up in the hospital it has nothing to do with me. It’s just between them and the government that will have to pay their hospital bills. Wait, it does have something to do with me. Wait, it has everything to do with me.

I suddenly realized that libertarians are against the government until there is a fire. Or until there is a lawsuit they’d like to file. Or until they get sick. Cut a tea partier and I think you’ll find a socialist just under the surface. Because you never hear these people talk about who will pay for all the uncovered medical problems that people will face in their hoped for new utopia.

Wait a minute. I’ve lived in their utopia, huge numbers of people unable to afford health insurance and the rest of us picking up the tab.

Which got me thinking. What America really needs right now is a better libertarian, because the current brand is pretty much indistinguishable from any socialist that I ever met.

About The Author: Bob Rosner is a best-selling author and award-winning journalist. For free job and work advice, check out the award-winning workplace911.com. Check the revised edition of his Wall Street Journal best seller, “The Boss’s Survival Guide.” If you have a question for Bob, contact him via bob@workplace911.com.

Recent polls show a majority of Americans want Congress to pass comprehensive health care reform now. And for good reason: There’s more news out this week about the enormous increases in health insurance premiums, according to a new report.

A survey from Economist/YouGov released this week shows 53 percent of respondents support changes proposed by the Obama administration. A second poll by Ipsos/McClutchey shows that 53 percent of Americans either support the current reform option or hope for an even stronger reform package. More than a third of those who oppose current reform proposals actually favor stronger reforms.

Meanwhile, a study by Health Care for America Now (HCAN) shows jaw-dropping insurance premium hikes—up 97 percent for families and 90 percent for individuals between 2000 and 2008. Premiums rose two times faster than medical costs and more than three times faster than wages. Companies like WellPoint are raising premiums by as much as 39 percent in California and by double digits in at least 11 states.

An analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that people who bought insurance on their own between 2004 and 2007 on average paid more of their health expenses themselves—52 percent—than insurance companies. Yet those who had employer-sponsored coverage only paid 30 percent out of pocket.

The industry front group, America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), heard plenty this week as thousands gathered in Washington, D.C., outside AHIP’s meeting to stage a citizens’ arrest for its crime in blocking health care reform.

Says Kaiser Family Foundation President Drew Altman:

The recent premium increases in the individual market probably have done more to illustrate the cost of doing nothing in health reform in simple, graphic terms people can understand than anything so far in the health reform debate.

*This article originally appeared in AFL-CIO blog on March 11, 2010. Reprinted with permission.

About the Author: James Parks had his first encounter with unions at Gannett’s newspaper in Cincinnati when his colleagues in the newsroom tried to organize a unit of The Newspaper Guild. He saw firsthand how companies pull out all the stops to prevent workers from forming a union. He is a journalist by trade, and worked for newspapers in five different states before joining the AFL-CIO staff in 1990. He has also been a seminary student, drug counselor, community organizer, event planner, adjunct college professor and county bureaucrat. His proudest career moment, though, was when he served, along with other union members and staff, as an official observer for South Africa’s first multiracial elections. Author photo by Joe Kekeris

Yesterday, Republican leaders finally confirmed that they weren’t going to bring a health care bill to the President’s summit tomorrow. Why? Because they don’t actually want to reform health care (emphasis added):

The Senate GOP leadership is brushing off Dan Pfeiffer’s demand this morning that Republicans clarify whether they’ll produce a bill in advance of the summit, and won’t put forth a “comprehensive proposal,” aides say.

This morning on the White House blog, Pfeiffer challenged GOP leaders to say whether they’d be bringing a bill to the summit. “The Senate Republicans have yet to post any kind of plan,” Pfeiffer wrote, adding that “we continue to await word from them.”

Asked for comment, a senior Senate GOP aide emailed:

We fundamentally disagree with a comprehensive proposal to reform health care. We think a step by step approach on areas where we agree is the best path forward. We will not be posting a comprehensive alternative to commence a staring contest.

Of course, health care advocates have known this all along. Republicans have no solutions to the crisis in our health care system because they don’t view it as a system in crisis.

However, the position that health care in this country doesn’t need fundamental reform is a dangerous position to take. Never mind that every day we go without reform, 6,821 more people lose their health insurance [pdf], 2,548 more people file for bankruptcy because they got sick, and 60 more people die [pdf] because they don’t have the coverage they need. Declaring that as a party Republicans “fundamentally disagree with a comprehensive proposal to reform health care” is radically out of step with the American people.

The latest Kaiser Health Tracking Poll is only the latest in a series showing the elements of health reform are popular:

Other parts of reform are really popular too, like the public option.

And majorities want comprehensive health reform passed:

And even more will be disappointed or angry if reform doesn’t pass:

If Republicans think going with nothing is going to win them broad support, they haven’t been reading their polling.

Democrats need to work to make sure the reform that passes works for everyone in America and has the popular elements in it – they must pass health care that works for us and pass it now. Today, we’re helping to put in 1 million messages to Congress to send them that message, and Melanie’s March is arriving in DC to a huge rally with Senators attending the summit, so we’ll get to tell that message to these Senators in person.

Getting health reform done right is more than good policy for the country, it’s popular, too. And it will show America that Democrats won’t accept the party of NO’s strategy.

*This post originally appeared in Health Care For America Now on February 24, 2010. Reprinted with permission.

About the Author: Jason Rosenbaum is a writer and musician currently residing in Washington D.C. He is interested in the intersection of politics and culture, media consolidation issues, and making sense out of our foreign policy disasters. He currently works for Health Care for America Now and he is also the webmaster for The Seminal.

President Obama this morning released his version of health care reform legislation that combines elements of the Senate and House bills passed late last year. The new plan was unveiled in preparation for Thursday’s televised bipartisan White House health care summit.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said working families “look foward” to moving the ball forward this week toward the goal of quality, affordable health care for all Americans. Republicans in Congress have an opportunity to stand with working families or continue to protect the profits of the insurance industry. We are prepared to work with the White House and leadership in Congress to advance a comprehensive health care bill that will be passed into law.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said this morning the revised proposal “contains positive elements” from both bills. She is scheduled to meet with the other House Democrats today to review the bill further. In a statement, Pelosi said:

Our nation is closer than ever to guaranteeing affordable health care to America’s middle class and small businesses, lowering costs and strengthening Medicare for seniors, holding insurance companies accountable, and reducing our deficit. The cost of inaction is too great for our nation and for every family facing the heartbreaking reality of skyrocketing health care costs and denied care or coverage.

An excise tax on health benefits that remain in the plan has been modified even further than an earlier agreement reached by the White House and union leaders. Under the latest proposal, the tax wouldn’t kick in until the annual premium cost for all families reached $27,500 and would not take effect until 2018.

The bill also includes: higher subsidies for low- and middle-income families to help pay for health insurance: closing the Medicare prescription drug ”donut hole”; new authority to control health insurance premium increases; applying the full Medicare tax (both employer and employee share, or 2.9 percent) to unearned income for families earning more than $250,000; an increase in the penalty for employers that do not provide health benefits from $750 per worker to $2,000; increased Medicaid funding for all states; raising from $23 billion to $33 billion the assessment of drug companies; a ban on denial of coverage for pre-existing conditions. Click here for a full summary.

House and Senate Republicans who have unanimously opposed the reform bills and blocked action were invited to post an alternative health care plan on the White House website so voters could compare ideas. But Republican leaders refused the offer. However, they do say they will attend the Thursday summit.

*This post originally appeared in AFL-CIO blog on February 22, 2010. Reprinted with permission.

About the Author: Mike Hall is a former West Virginia newspaper reporter, staff writer for the United Mine Workers Journal and managing editor of the Seafarers Log. I came to the AFL- CIO in 1989 and have written for several federation publications, focusing on legislation and politics, especially grassroots mobilization and workplace safety. When my collar was still blue, I carried union cards from the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers, American Flint Glass Workers and Teamsters for jobs in a chemical plant, a mining equipment manufacturing plant and a warehouse. I’ve also worked as roadie for a small-time country-rock band, sold my blood plasma and played an occasional game of poker to help pay the rent. You may have seen me at one of several hundred Grateful Dead shows. I was the one with longhair and the tie-dye. Still have the shirts, lost the hair.

The White House Task Force on the Middle Class today announced several initiatives it says will help middle-class families afford soaring child care costs, care for their aging relatives, cope with the challenge of saving for retirement and pay for their children’s college tuition.

President Obama says the measures will help “ease the burdens on middle-class families who are struggling in this economy, and provide the help they need to get ahead.” The White House says Obama will discuss these and other vital middle-class issues, including job creation and health care in his State of the Union address Wednesday.

The Task Force chairman, Vice President Joe Biden, says the initiatives were developed after a series of meetings during the past year with working families around the country and at the White House.

Every day, middle-class families go to work and help make this country great.  For a year, our Task Force has been hearing that they are struggling with soaring costs and squeezed family budgets. These common sense initiatives will help these families cope with these challenges.

The initiatives include:

• Nearly doubling the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit for middle-class families making under $85,000 a year and a $1.6 billion increase in child care funding for families struggling to enter the middle class.

• Limiting a student’s federal loan payments to 10 percent of his or her income above a basic living allowance.

• Creating a system of automatic workplace IRAs, requiring all employers to give the option for employees to enroll in a direct-deposit IRA.

• Expanding tax credits to match retirement savings and enacting new safeguards to protect retirement savings.

• Expanding support for families balancing work with caring for elderly relatives.

Click here for a fact sheet with more detailed information on each initiative.

The Task Force has given working families and union leaders the opportunity to outline their concerns and offer recommendations on ways to make the economy work for working families.

United Steelworkers President Leo W. Gerard emphasized the need for creation of good green jobs. Members of Communications Workers of America (CWA) Local 730 in St. Cloud. Minn., told Biden and the Task Force that the Employee Free Choice Act was vital to allow workers to bargain for jobs with good wages and benefits. AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler urged the Task Force to make fixing manufacturing a priority in building a stronger economy.

Visit the White House Task Force on the Middle Class website here.

*This article originally appeared in the AFL-CIO blog on January 25, 2009. Reprinted with permission.

About the Author: Mike Hall is a former West Virginia newspaper reporter, staff writer for the United Mine Workers Journal and managing editor of the Seafarers Log. I came to the AFL- CIO in 1989 and have written for several federation publications, focusing on legislation and politics, especially grassroots mobilization and workplace safety. When my collar was still blue, I carried union cards from the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers, American Flint Glass Workers and Teamsters for jobs in a chemical plant, a mining equipment manufacturing plant and a warehouse. I’ve also worked as roadie for a small-time country-rock band, sold my blood plasma and played an occasional game of poker to help pay the rent. You may have seen me at one of several hundred Grateful Dead shows. I was the one with longhair and the tie-dye. Still have the shirts, lost the hair.

A little over a year after its launch, more than 1,400 posts have appeared on the SEIU Blog. As the end of 2009 drew closer in sight, we decided to look through our records to find the 10 most popular stories on the blog this year.

Although I was definitely surprised at one or two that made the top 10, I think the list does a relatively decent job of capturing many of the interests of the political-minded activists that have grown into regular readers of the SEIU Blog: fighting for quality, affordable health care and public services for all Americans, ending corporate greed, holding elected leaders accountable and standing up for working people.

Here are the top-read SEIU Blog posts of 2009:

1. Domestic violence is a “pre-existing condition”

Back in September, we began a month-long campaign publicizing the fact that in eight states and Washington, DC, insurance companies could deny coverage to a victim of domestic violence, citing it as a “pre-existing condition.” Everyone from feminist bloggers to the first lady weighed in on the issue, throwing their weight behind eliminating this despicable practice and demanding gender equity in healthcare reform. SEIU launched a multi-channel campaign using blogging, online petitions, Facebook & Twitter to raise awareness and urge members of Congress to demand health care reform that did not discriminate against women.

2. Stop the violence at health care town halls

Things turned ugly at healthcare town halls in August, as events designed to serve as open, safe environments to ask questions of elected officials about health reform degenerated into violent shouting matches and false accusations.

3. Joe Lieberman will hate this

What do Sens. Joe Lieberman (D-CT), Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) and Ben Nelson (D-NE) have in common? Well, they all caucus with the Democrats–and in November, they alone were threats to whether or not the Senate was going to get to vote on health care reform. In response, we launched an an “Adopt-a-State” campaign to reach out to constituents of Senators who may not support a cloture vote.

4. Time to Go: Bank of America must fire CEO Ken Lewis

Through a grassroots and online-driven campaign, over 100 events were held across the nation against Bank of America and more than 90,000 taxpayer proxy cards were collected & delivered at BofA’s annual shareholder meeting, calling for the firing of Ken Lewis for his corporate greed, corruption and anti-worker company policies. Along with helping to get Lewis fired, it was our most successful online list building campaign to date.

5. Letter from President Andy Stern to SEIU members: Where do we go from here?

Following a meeting of the SEIU leadership in mid-December, President Andy Stern sent a letter to SEIU’s 2.2 million nurses, doctors, home healthcare workers, janitors, security guards, and child care workers laying out his concerns with and expectations for healthcare reform legislation currently moving through Congress.

6. Your Guide to Corporate Astroturfing: Lobbyist-Run Groups Orchestrating…

This post was written during the height of the buzz over disruptions of health care town hall meetings by right-wing opponents bent on blocking any reform legislation. At the same time these groups were disrupting serious and civil discourse about healthcare reform with discredited myths about reform, they were also engaging in Astroturf [read: fake grassroots] activism. We profiled some of conservative lobbyist-run groups who were leading the way orchestrating town hall mobs.

7. Republican Senators Vetoed Insurance Protection for Domestic Violence Victims

In 2006, an amendment was introduced to the Health Insurance Marketplace Modernization and Affordability Act of 2006 that would have forced insurance companies to stop ignoring state laws that provided protection for victims of domestic violence, specifically when it came to denying them insurance coverage. Ten Republican Senators voted against it.

8. Warning: This story is going to make you angry

From not covering maternity care to calling domestic violence a pre-existing condition, insurance companies seem to have written the book on how to turn a buck at the expense of millions of women in America. As awareness of this common practice has grown, an increasing string of horrifying stories of individual women and their families who’ve been denied insurance because of their wombs has contributed to the dialogue. Among the most recent examples is Chris Turner, a health insurance agent from Tampa Florida who is a rape survivor.

9. SEIU’s Andy Stern Named in Top Ten Most Powerful People in Healthcare

This year marked the fifth year in a row SEIU President Andy Stern was named to Modern Healthcare’s annual listing of the ‘Top 100′ most influential “movers and shakers in healthcare”. SEIU will fight in Conference Committee in the coming weeks to make care more affordable by not taxing American families who pay “Cadillac costs” for mediocre benefits; increase tax credits to make healthcare more affordable for working families; strengthen employer responsibility; and press for more health insurance reforms.”

10. Hard-fought wins in new contract for for 95,000 California state workers

In a state with skyrocketing home foreclosures and levels of joblessness that exceed 10 percent, California’s budget woes sometimes seem endless. Right around the time Gov. Schwarzenegger announced the elimination of up to 20,000 state jobs, we brought you news of the tentative contract agreement SEIU Local 1000 secured, covering and protecting the jobs of 95,000 California state workers.

One last note regarding this ‘top 10′ list: Three of the top 10 posts center on our incredibly successful “domestic violence is not a pre-existing condition” campaign, which helped draw quite a lot of much-needed attention to women’s health issues and how insurance companies routinely take advantage of women. (Check out online actions here, here, here and here). And the efforts paid off–the health insurance reform legislation before Congress will make practices like “gender rating” and “pre-existing conditions” illegal, once for all.

Subscribe to SEIU’s Blog RSS feed here, and look for many more great posts from us in 2010!

*This post originally appeared in SEIU Blog on December 30, 2009. Reprinted with permission from the author.

About the Author: Kate Thomas is a blogger, web producer and new media coordinator at the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), a labor union with 2.1 million members in the healthcare, public and property service sectors. Kate’s passions include the progressive movement, the many wonders of the Internet and her job working for an organization that is helping to improve the lives of workers and fight for meaningful health care and labor law reform. Prior to working at SEIU, Katie worked for the American Medical Student Association (AMSA) as a communications/public relations coordinator and editor of AMSA’s newsletter appearing in The New Physician magazine.