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LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS OF WESTCHESTER
Making Democracy Work |
LWVW
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Students in Albany April 2010 Two Rye Students Chosen for LWV's "Students Inside Albany" Conference The Rye, Rye Brook & Port Chester and the Larchmont-Mamaroneck Chapters of the League of Women Voters announced today that two local students were selected for an all-expense paid trip to Albany to learn about the New York State legislative process. The students, Kristen Duarte, a junior at Rye High School and Katrina Kohn, a sophomore at the School of the Holy Child were chosen through a competitive process to participate in the League of Women Voters’ four-day Students Inside Albany (SIA) Conference. The program will run from April 11 to 14 in Albany. Sponsored by the League of Women Voters of New York State, the SIA Conference brings together high school students from across the state. Kristen and Katrina will join with other student leaders, and will have the opportunity to meet and shadow their elected representatives, tour the capitol, debate current policy issues, and meet with representatives from all sectors of the political arena. Kristen Duarte and Katrina Kohn were selected through a competitive process designed to assess the student’s interests, goals and leadership abilities. The competition was open to students attending high schools in the Rye, Rye Neck, Rye Brook, Port Chester, Larchmont and Mamaroneck communities. Kristen Duarte is the founder and President of Rye High School’s Project Outreach community service club. Project Outreach enables students to interact with and tutor underprivileged children in an after school program at Port Chester’s Don Bosco Center. Through Project Outreach, Kristen has recruited 45 students to tutor an average of 25 children per day. As President, she oversees the club’s management aspects including managing and organizing volunteers and master schedules as well as actively tutoring students herself on a weekly basis. Kristen also volunteers her time for a number of Rye High School’s organizations including the Breast Cancer Awareness Club and the Our Soldier club. She is a member of the varsity crew team, a reporter for the high school newspaper, and a varsity field hockey manager. Kristen also has been a volunteer at a soup kitchen in the Bronx and a volunteer as a teacher’s aide for the past two summers at a pre-school for underprivileged children. Kristen hopes to pursue a career in law. Katrina Kohn is the 10th grade President at the School of the Holy Child. Since her freshman year, she has been actively involved in student government, community outreach programs and as a member of her school’s athletic teams. Katrina was elected as a 9th grade class representative to student government and was also the 9th grade representative to the school’s literary magazine. Katrina is currently Co-President of the literary magazine and was one of the students responsible for reviving the magazine and for initiating two evenings of poetry readings, one at a Starbucks and the other on campus. Katrina also works on local builds and fundraises for Habitat for Humanity at Holy Child. She has been a member of the school’s varsity golf team since the 9th grade and a member of the varsity squash team beginning in the 10th grade. Katrina’s aspires to a career both in journalism and law. The League of Women Voters, a nonpartisan political organization, encourages informed and active participation in government and works to foster a better understanding of public policy issues that will have an impact on our lives and our communities. New Rochelle High School Senior Selected for "Students Inside Albany" Conference Chinmayi Sharma, a senior and honor student at New Rochelle High School, attended a Students Inside Albany Conference sponsored by the League of Women Voters, and said she came back with a more realistic but still positive view of state government. “It showed me some things I really love about government but also the things that go on behind closed doors that we don’t really see,” she said. During four days in Albany, she heard from elected officials, bureaucrats, lobbyists and journalists, and shadowed both Assembly woman Amy Paulin and State Senator Suzi Oppenheimer. “I’ve always seen myself one day becoming a lawyer and possibly joining politics. It is experiences like this that push me that much more in that direction,” she said. Chinmayi was sponsored by the New Rochelle LWV. The conference, organized by the LWV of New York State Education Fund, hosted students from around the state, including two students sponsored by the Rye, Rye Brook, Port Chester LWV. She said that it is “inspiring to see government at work, even when it isn’t working well.” After observing people who were trying to improve government, she wants “to be part of that improvement. Politics at its core is all about working to make things better for the person--at least which is what they tell us. So that is what I want to strive for.” In addition to membership in the National Honor Society, National English Honor Society, and National Art Honor Society, Chinmayi was president of her school’s Junior State of America and earned a Second Degree Black Belt. She also has been an award winning Girl Scout since kindergarten, a mentor for younger students, a sponsor helping to create the high school victory garden, a Tae Kwon Do instructor, and exercise trainer. She will attend Duke University in the fall and major in philosophy and economics. Single Payer National Health Insurance Can we afford covering the 47 million uninsured and the 50 million underinsured nationwide? Yes, we can. Currently insurance companies have an overhead of approximately 30 percent, which is spent on marketing, administration, shareholders dividends and exorbitant CEO salaries. Medicare's overhead is approximately 3 percent. We could save about $350 billion annually, enough to cover the 47 million uninsured and the 50 million underinsured. Both the Congressional Budget Office and the General Accounting Office say the U.S. could insure everyone for the money we're paying now to insure seniors only. Is this socialized medicine? No, it is not. With socialized medicine, doctors and hospitals are owned by the government. As with Medicare, hospitals would be semi-private just as they are now, and doctors would be in private practice just as they are now. Single payer would replace the costly, inefficient system of private insurance. Paperwork would be greatly reduced because there would be only one entity to deal with. Fifty-nine percent of physicians support legislation to establish national health insurance; 65 percent of Americans agree that the U.S. should adopt a program like Medicare for all. We spend twice as much on health care as other industrialized nations, and they cover all of their population. Every other industrialized country in the world has national health insurance. We are the only country that uses private, for-profit insurance to finance health care for the majority of our population. Do we need to improve our current Medicare system? Yes, we do. Medicare is suffering financially because of the intrusion of private health-maintenance organizations, which were initially put into place as a cost-effective system, but were actually less cost effective. HMOs are subsidized by the government, cherry-pick healthy patients, and yet their costs are 12 percent more than traditional Medicare. This system costs the taxpayers $15 billion a year. Each year, half of all personal bankruptcies are caused by medical bills, and 75 percent of those bankrupted were insured when they got sick. Insurance premiums go up each year for policies that cover less and less. The goal of insurance companies is to make a profit for their shareholders and CEOs. All of these issues obviously affect residents of the Lower Hudson Valley and New York. More and more groups are petitioning for single payer: Major stumbling blocks are the drug and insurance companies. These industries spend more than any other industry lobbying Congress. They succeeded in making Medicare part D a windfall for drug companies. Both former Sen. Hillary Clinton and President Obama have said in the past that single payer makes the most sense but is not "politically feasible" at this time. The flaw in both their proposed health-care reforms (as seen during their respective campaigns) is that they involve insurance companies in the system, making reform financially unaffordable. This approach is not viable, as numerous state-based experiments have shown. Such plans fail because of the cost. All we need is the political will. Addendum: A bill has been introduced in the US House of Representatives by Rep. John Conyers, HR676, that would provide for a single payer system that would provide coverage for all primary and preventive health care, prescripton drugs, mental health services, dentistry, eye care, substance abuse treatment and long term care. There are no co-pays or deductibles. The bill has 92 supporters in the House. It is important that we contact members of the House to support this bill. League Opposes County Purchase of 450 Saw Mill River Road for Board of Elections The League of Women Voters® of Westchester today sent a message to the entire Westchester County Board of Legislators and County Executive Andrew Spano opposing the proposed purchase of 450 Saw Mill River Road for the Board of Elections. Read the letter (Word document) outlining the reasons for the League’s opposition that was sent March 9 to county officials by League President Mary Beth Gose and Chair of the League’s County Budget Committee, Barbara Strauss.
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Keeping an Eye on the If interested in joining the Study Committee of the Westchester County LWV please contact Chairman Kristina McCarthy c/o the Westchester County League. League Letter to the County Board of Legislators 9-18-09 on the Proposed Housing Settlement (continued from home page) In doing so, we have come to commend the County’s energetic efforts for affordable housing across the spectrum and throughout the County. This includes workforce housing for the teachers, firefighters, police, municipal workers and others on whose presence every community depends. Since the 2007 filing of the lawsuit against the County by the New York City-based Anti- Discrimination Center, the League of Women Voters® of Westchester also has monitored all public discussion about it and, more recently, about the proposed Housing Settlement Agreement negotiated with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and issued on August 10, 2009. Having done so, we note that in past years, communities throughout Westchester have benefited from funds from federal Community Development Block Grants for projects ranging from open space preservation to senior centers and housing. Without approval of this Agreement, all similar future projects could be in jeopardy. With this background, the League has reviewed the Housing Settlement Agreement and requests clarification of certain issues. Paragraph 5 of the Agreement limits the County’s financial exposure from 2009 through 2014. The Agreement, however, fails to address or limit the County’s financial exposure after the year 2014. The number of affordable housing units may not be reduced except as set forth in paragraph 15(a)(vi) which allows for a reduction in the case where “further extension of the time frames will not be sufficient to permit the possible satisfaction of the County’s obligations.” It can be expected that over time and with sufficient funding the units can be built. The League requests that future funding be determined so that the County may accommodate such funding without an increase in taxes or debt over a prudent amount. The League requests that the County request a side letter to the Agreement to clarify the financial requirements for the duration of this Agreement. The League has been a long-time supporter of the Fair Housing Act and rejects any discrimination in housing on the basis of race or other protected classes as set forth in that legislation. Absent any demonstrated discrimination, the League encourages the County to request that the units contemplated under this agreement be offered to all classes in the appropriate income groups. Affordable housing in Westchester County is in such short supply that all income-eligible County residents should be able to benefit from a unique opportunity to live in these affordable housing units. Finally, in observing the governmental process, the League notes that this Agreement, which affects municipalities throughout the entire county, has been negotiated without any input from the County Board of Legislators, even though legislative approval of the Agreement is legally required. During the preparation of the Agreement’s upcoming implementation plan, the League urges greater collaboration between the Executive and Legislative branches to achieve a result that reflects the same open, deliberative process in which the legislators have been engaged in recent weeks. The Executive Committee of the League of Women Voters® of Westchester County supports the Housing Settlement Agreement with the above reservations and looks forward to continuing to work with the County to successfully implement this accord. Sincerely, cc: Members of the Westchester County Board of Legislators, Westchester County Executive The Honorable Andrew J. Spano WESTCHESTER LEAGUE KEEPS US CONNECTED WITH The new 2008 League of Women Voters® Directory of Officials is now available. This popular annual publication organizes the contact information for those who serve us in government into one convenient guide. The Directory provides current names, addresses, and phone numbers of all elected officials and many appointed officials who represent Westchester residents at the federal, state, county and local levels. When possible, web sites, e-mail addresses, organizational structure, meeting days, maps and other useful details are also included. Anyone may purchase a copy of the Directory of Officials by sending a check for $6.00, made out to The League of Women Voters® of Westchester, to 200 Hamilton Ave., White Plains 10601. The $6.00 cost includes postage and handling. For further information, including rates for volume orders, please call 949-0507, or e-mail at LWVWestchester@verizon.net. “The Directory is an important resource for all Westchester County residents,” Mary Beth Gose, LWVW president, said “It is especially useful for people in government, business, library reference departments, nonprofit organizations, the media, and civic and advocacy groups.” Printing of the Directory was made possible through a contribution from ConEdison. Download order form (Word doc) The League of Women Voters® is a nonpartisan, grassroots organization which promotes informed and active citizen participation in government. Membership is open to all citizens over 18; others may join as associates
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Updated by Valerie Castleman May 2, 2010