Losing Your Health Care to COVID-19
The pandemic has forced workers off of employer-sponsored plans and into the unknown.
For more than forty-five years, Shirley Smith has been a dedicated member of the workforce. A can-do woman, she helped customers select furniture and trained legions of salespeople at Art Van in Taylor, Michigan. Steady paychecks enabled her to support her son, buy a home, and manage her diabetes.
But in March, Smithâs world collapsed when the retailer, where she had worked for twenty-three years, announced that it was going out of business.
During previous recessions, workers were focused on getting back to work, but now they must also consider whether they will survive the pandemic.
Nearly 25 years ago, with the stroke of a pen, the United States broke its commitment to provide medical care for Marshall Islands residents living in the United States.
This past weekend, congressional negotiators agreed to reinstate that promise, delivering Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program coverage to tens of thousands of Marshallese and residents of several other Pacific Island nations living in the United States.
“We are all so overjoyed with tears of joy for this fight that many have us have been part of” for decades, said Sheldon Riklon, a Marshallese physician at the University of Arkansas Medical Center’s Northwest Center. “This is an historic legislation that we finally right the wrong.”
Walden looks back on 22 years in Congress heraldandnews.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from heraldandnews.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
As 2020 comes to a thankful close, so does my 22 years of public service in this incredible crucible of democracy â the U.S. House.
I thank my wife, Mylene, and son, Anthony, for always supporting me during my three decades of state and federal service. I will never fully understand all they sacrificed so I could fulfill my duty in office, but I know it was a lot.
I also want to thank my terrific staff over the years, and especially those who helped me build and lead such successful organizations, including my personal office chiefs of staff Brian MacDonald and Lorissa Bounds; my executive directors at the NRCC, Liesl Hickey and Rob Simms; and my staff directors at the Energy and Commerce Committee, the late Ray Baum, Mike Bloomquist and Ryan Long.