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Answers to Pam Crone’s February Advocate Article Questions What You Have Always Wanted to Know and Didn’t Know You Wanted to Know Here is the key to the questions I posed in the February Retiree Advocate. I hope you learned something, and, if not, had some fun. 1. How long does the Governor have before signing a bill after passed by the Legislature? Once the house speaker and senate president sign the bill, it’s delivered to the governor’s office. This process can take several days following the passage of a bill by the Legislature. Bills that are delivered to the governor more than five days before the Legislature adjourns have five days to be acted on. Bills that are delivered fewer than five days before the Legislature adjourns have 20 days to be acted on by the governor. Days are calendar days, not counting Sundays. 2. To what does “on the Bar” refer? Placing a bill or amendment "on the bar" is a procedural step required to introduce it for consideration. They must be handed to the Chief Clerk of the House or the Secretary of the Senate to be officially considered. A final vote on a major budget bill generally requires it to be on the third reading calendar for at least 24 hours, but this rule can be suspended by a two-thirds vote. 3. To what does “they are in caucus, AGAIN” refer? There are four major caucuses, Senate Republican, Senate Democrat, House Republican, House Democrat. Caucuses meet throughout the legislative session to discuss bills before they are brought to the floor for a vote. “They are in caucus, AGAIN” refers to a lament expressed by advocates as they watch the clock tick by approaching the deadline for bringing bills to the floor. The anxiety increases as the likelihood grows dimmer for getting a vote on your bill. 4. How is the House Speaker elected? The majority party in an internal vote selects its speaker. Then all members of the House regardless of party vote for the Speaker. 5. Is the Senate Majority Leader chosen the same way? No. The Washington State Senate Majority Leader is elected by a vote of the majority party caucus members 6. Blast from the past: what is a Gulchette? The Gulch was the colloquial term short for “ulcer gulch” where lobbyists could make phone calls, receive messages, and use copying services. There were usually 2-3 women called “gulchettes” who provided these services and were paid by lobbyists’ dues who comprised the “third house.” There is no longer an “ulcer gulch.” Smart phones and other technology made the services provided redundant. 7. Who gets to eat in the Senate Dining Room? While it was once very exclusive, the Washington Senate Dining Room has gradually opened its doors to a wider range of legislative personnel and guests. Generally, legislators and staff, other elected officials and guests can eat in the senate dining room.

Medicare Advantage takes advantage of Seniors by limiting care and drains our Medicare Fund for private company profit. Hospitals dropping Medicare Advantage because of concerns with patient care Many of you who have followed the challenges faced by Medicare in the last few years are familiar with the reporting of Diane Archer and her Just Care website . Diane brings us this report on how hospital networks are refusing to admit patients who are in Medicare Advantage. These hospitals have concerns with the quality of care the Medicare Advantage insurance companies are willing to provide. Diane has suggested a helpful action would be to contact Senator Wyden’s office (202-224-5244), as chair of Senate Finance Committee, which oversees Medicare, as well as your representatives. Ask them to intervene to ensure that insurers offering Medicare Advantage do not endanger access to hospital care. Karen Richter Co President PSARA Diane Archer Just Care August 16, 2023 St. Charles Health System, a large hospital system in central Oregon likely will not continue to participate in Medicare Advantage, reports KTVZ.com. The hospital system’s leaders are concerned about patient care in Medicare Advantage. People with Medicare who want to know they have access to the best hospitals, including access to cancer centers of excellence, should switch to traditional Medicare. St. Charles is not alone; many hospital systems are not taking Medicare Advantage enrollees. St. Charles’ CEO says that the hospital system has considered dropping Medicare Advantage plans for some time because of mounting concerns. He reports that his hospital system is not alone. Hospital systems throughout the country are concerned about patient care in Medicare Advantage. The Mayo Clinic stopped taking Medicare Advantage enrollees at some sites last year. In the CEO’s words: “The reality of Medicare Advantage in Central Oregon is that it just hasn’t lived up to the promise. A program intended to promote seamless and higher-quality care has instead become a fragmented patchwork of administrative delays, denials, and frustrations. The sicker you are, the more hurdles you and your care teams face. Our insurance partners need to do better, especially when nurses, physicians and other caregivers are reporting high levels of burnout and job dissatisfaction.” The American Hospital Association (AHA), the trade association for most hospitals reports that it “is increasingly concerned about certain (Medicare Advantage) plan policies that restrict or delay patient access to care, which also add cost and burden to the health care system.” To make matters worse, it appears that some Medicare Advantage plans are engaged in fraud as well as inappropriate delays and denials of care and coverage. St. Charles hospital executives see higher rates of denials of care in Medicare Advantage and long arduous processes for getting Medicare Advantage plans to approve medically necessary care. St. Charles health system is considering whether it will renew Medicare Advantage contracts with PacificSource, Humana, HealthNet and WellCare. The bottom line: With traditional Medicare, your treating physicians call the shots, deciding what care is medically reasonable and necessary, and Medicare covers that care, without second-guessing and coming between you and your doctors. With Medicare Advantage, many insurance companies second guess treating physicians and deny care or delay care, endangering patient health. The Office of the Inspector General has reported widespread and persistent inappropriate delays and denials of care and coverage in Medicare Advantage. But, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has so far refused to identify the bad actors or sanction them appropriately, putting older adults and people with disabilities at serious risk. Healthy patients in Medicare Advantage should be fine. But, even if you are healthy today, you could need complex care tomorrow and your insurance should cover that care. That’s why we have health insurance. In some Medicare Advantage plans, you might not get needed care in a timely manner, if at all, regardless of whether you need it.

Read American Medical Association’s (AMA) In Opposition to the Medicare WISeR Program

PSARA Oral Histories Project: Thursten Muskelly Return to Oral Histories Main Page Thurston Muskelly Interview PSARA Advocate Archives November 2022 Page 9 Part I December 2022 Page 9 Part II “My Greatest Thing is Helping People” An Interview with Thurston Muskelly By Angie Bartels If you ask Thurston Muskelly what he likes to do most in the world, he’ll tell you it’s reaching out and helping others. He’s been doing this ever since childhood when he worked on the family farm. Thurston was born in Union, SC, in 1933, and grew up in Salisbury, NC. His mother, Eloise Robinson Muskelly, was an English teacher and taught middle school through college. She was full Cherokee, 6’6” tall and weighed 250 pounds. His father, Edward, was Native American, African American, Italian, and Caucasian, and 6’1” tall. He was an engineer for Southern Railway and ran Engine No. 34. He would be gone working a few days at a time so the Muskelly kids learned to take responsibility. At the age of 7, Thurston cared for the family’s 13 dairy cows and calves, feeding, milking, watering, and laying fresh straw for their beds. All the Muskelly children had chores to do “because my father pressed us into thinking that we help the family by doing these chores. And it was easy, but it was great responsibility.” When a cow or pig was slaughtered, Edward made sure that everyone in the community was given a share of the meat. “He believed in sharing, he just couldn't get around it. My mother would say, carry this piece of meat down to so-and-so. Everybody got a piece of joy.” Edward took Thurston to the railroad yard from the time he was quite young, where Thurston learned mechanics and how to fix the engines and other railroad equipment. Learning engineering came naturally to Thurston. Edward wept the day Thurston left for the US Navy in 1950. After boot camp, he was assigned to an aircraft carrier, the USS Albany. While serving in Pensacola, FL, Thurston met the love of his life, Joyce Williams. Joyce was working as a car hop at a BBQ joint, and he gently flirted with her. She talked with him, and soon Thurston was making frequent trips to the BBQ place to get his sandwiches and begin his courtship with Joyce. She was the eldest of five children and had the responsibility of raising her younger siblings. After a short while, they were married in 1954 in Lucedale, Mississippi, and made their home in Salisbury, NC, with his parents while Thurston served out his time in the Navy. Thurston had an accident on the ship where his arm was caught up in a winch. He received months of treatment but was permanently partially disabled. Upon discharge, he worked at the VA Hospital in Salisbury, NC. He and Joyce relocated to Youngstown, OH, upon the invitation of his uncle, who got him a job as a crane operator in a steel mill. “I was a part of the Steel Workers Union, and I worked off of the blast furnace. That's where you poured the ore into a furnace and the overrun went into a water well. The crane ran over the water well, and I would get that overrun ore that went into the water, lift it out, and put it in railroad cars. There were frequent national strikes, and one lasted six months.” In the meantime, Joyce visited her brother in Seattle, fell in love with the area, and told Thurston they should move there. Thurston was laid off at the time, so they came to Seattle in 1958. “After we got here, the family said they wanted me to work for Boeing, and I said no, I'm not going to work for Boeing because Boeing lays off too much. And I just come off a big layoff. So my brother-in-law took me to the US Public Health Service Hospital. And they only had one job available, which was a janitor's job. And I had to be a disabled veteran to get it. I was both. When I took the job, everybody laughed. With my resume and experience, I was overqualified. But I took the job because I had a wife and a young baby. I started off at $1.73 an hour. “ “There was an old German guy by the name of Mr. Monks. Monks came to me and said, ‘Thurston, if you stay here eight months, I’ll have an opening in engineering for you.' So I stayed there eight months and sure enough, I got a job in engineering with much higher pay. The job was repairman for blood pressure equipment, operating equipment, boiler room, all of this fell under engineering. They kept me in mechanics and I worked in that position for 25 years.” Thurston was instrumental in the formation of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 1170 at the USPHSH in 1970. “The employees at the hospital felt that the union was not representing what the needs of the employees were to the hospital administration. A lot of folks encouraged me to run for president, but a friend told me, ‘Thurston you could be jeopardizing your job.’ So, I went home and talked to the wife, and she said, ‘Well, you can always find another job’. So, I ran for president, and I won." It was during this time that Thurston’s natural ability to win people’s trust, to represent them fairly, and to bring them together in solidarity fully bloomed. “My father taught me leadership and responsibility, and that’s why the workers at USPHSH wanted me to be the president. It was my first time being the chief spokesman for employees in the union. We had an exciting executive board! I had people who worked together really hard. There was no animosity or division in the union. We were very together on issues that concerned employees and employees’ education, safety on the job, promotions, etc. We worked with the administration and Dr. Willard Johnson, the outstanding new director of the hospital. “Willard was out of Texas, and he was a very humble and good man who understood human needs. Dr. Johnson understood the problems that the employees faced, and he took it to heart. The employees were not treated fairly at the hospital until they elected the AFGE as the union spokesman for the group. We represented professionals and non-professionals alike. In fact, one of the doctors that we represented was Jim McDermott. He went on to be a State Senator” Dr. Johnson also began to understand the needs of the community at large. “He called me into his office one day and said, ‘Thurston, I know that you’re in charge of the union here at the hospital and I want to ask you for your help.’ He discussed that he had been in a meeting with the free clinics, and he had 5% of his hospital budget that he could donate to health care for people who didn’t have health care and couldn’t afford it. He wanted to use the US Public Health Service Hospital as a back-up for X-rays, lab work and treating people who didn’t have money. I told him that I would help him. Dr. Johnson put me in touch with David Loud, Tommy Byers, and a whole lot more people. My job with Dr. Johnson and the group was to keep all of the people and groups informed, keep them up to date what was going on and how they could help to sustain this fight.” The fight was against the federal policy to get out of the business of directly providing health care. Twenty USPHS hospitals had been closed under Republican and Democratic administrations, and the Nixon administration wanted to close the 8 remaining USPHS hospitals. However, the question of how to provide the health care of the legislated beneficiaries of the system - merchant mariners, commercial fishers, Native Americans, Alaska Natives, military retirees and dependents – had not been resolved. Dr. Johnson, who opposed closure, interpreted an obscure regulation in the Public Health Service Act which allowed 5% of the hospital's budget to be used for care of special cases of rare diseases for medical education purposes. He used this 5% of his budget to provide care to uninsured free clinic patients, care that the clinics were unable to offer (i.e., lab, radiology, specialities, acute inpatient care, surgery) and declared them to be special study patients. Thus, the free clinics' patients became beneficiaries of the USPHS, giving the community at large a stake in the preservation of the USPHS Hospital. This led to the formation of the Public Health Care Coalition, the group that would lead the fight against closure. Thurston got to know numerous elected officials throughout his time working at USPHSH with the union and the health care coalition. “Senator Warren G. Magnuson, Maggie, is the greatest in my time, the greatest senator of all times. He had feeling, charisma, patience, and he could work with anyone. He was also head of the Senate Appropriations Committee. He figured that the employees at the hospital would go the extra mile for people who couldn’t afford health care. He set up a program called Upward Mobility which was funded by the federal government. Hospital employees would apply and the executive board would select individuals blindly, without knowing their names. Everyone was assigned a letter such as A, B, C, etc. These individuals would attend college or technical school to advance their education and career. Many started as LPN or RN and got higher degrees including PhD. A lot of them went from nursing assistants to LPNs. The federal government, Maggie, set up the program so that the employees would work their jobs during the day and go to school at night. I also lobbied in Congress to save the USPHSH and although we didn’t save it, we were able to have the building transferred in 1981 from the USPHS, to the Pacific Hospital Preservation and Development Authority, created by the City of Seattle. That was the year I retired.” Although Thurston retired from his job at USPHSH, he did not retreat from work in the community. “For 10 years I was president of the Leschi Community Council. The city gave us 2.4 million dollars to rehab parks, so I did Powell Barnett Park, Flo Ware Park, and Peppi’s Playground. I was also president of the Central Area Senior Center for 10 years where I worked with Will Parry. Will was one of my executive board members at Central Area Senior Center. He was a very outstanding man and did a remarkable job. He would tell you right quick that he didn’t have a lot of money to spend, but he was willing to give his time and efforts to a cause. He and his son raised over $5,000 for the Senior Center. He was very persistent and went after things that people needed. I was grateful to work with him on issues concerning seniors. “I also brought in the Seattle Girls School to Jackson and MLK. I convinced the Leschi Community Council that this is what we need. We wanted the young ladies to be competitive with the young men. In other words, if a man got a degree in mechanical engineering so could a young lady. She could stand as tall as he.” “I was also president of the Central Area Development Association, which helped seniors maintain their homes by painting, doing repair work, and yard maintenance. People on Social Security can’t afford to keep up their homes, so CADA helped with that.” Thurston held these three positions simultaneously. Thurston lost Joyce, his wife of 64 years, to cancer in 2019. “Joyce was an outstanding person and a wonderful wife. She was a lady that loved responsibility. She worked for Frederick and Nelson, in handbags, for 26 years. She didn't like to see children that couldn’t read and didn't know how to do math so she volunteered down at the school. She also volunteered at the Central Area Senior Center working in the kitchen and serving food to other seniors. She could get along with anyone. She could make you feel welcome when you thought that you were all alone. She always had a smile, and she was a real people's person. My greatest thing is helping people, seeing that they enjoy life as well as anybody. I really get disturbed when people in power can do something for others and don't do it. I don't like individuals that prey on others and feel that others are less than they are. I think everyone is entitled to justice and care. If people can’t afford to pay forward, they shouldn’t be mistreated, and they should receive good care. My greatest hope is that people will look upon others with love and peace, not hate, and that everyone will reach out and help someone. Angie Bartels is PSARA's membership VP. This is one in a series of interviews she's conducting with members of PSARA. Dr. Johnson also began to understand the needs of the community at large. “He called me into his office one day and said, ‘Thurston, I know that you’re in charge of the union here at the hospital and I want to ask you for your help.’ He discussed that he had been in a meeting with the free clinics, and he had 5% of his hospital budget that he could donate to health care for people who didn’t have health care and couldn’t afford it. He wanted to use the US Public Health Service Hospital as a back-up for X-rays, lab work and treating people who didn’t have money. I told him that I would help him. Dr. Johnson put me in touch with David Loud, Tommy Byers, and a whole lot more people. My job with Dr. Johnson and the group was to keep all of the people and groups informed, keep them up to date what was going on and how they could help to sustain this fight.” The fight was against the federal policy to get out of the business of directly providing health care. Twenty USPHS hospitals had been closed under Republican and Democratic administrations, and the Nixon administration wanted to close the 8 remaining USPHS hospitals. However, the question of how to provide the health care of the legislated beneficiaries of the system - merchant mariners, commercial fishers, Native Americans, Alaska Natives, military retirees and dependents – had not been resolved. Dr. Johnson, who opposed closure, interpreted an obscure regulation in the Public Health Service Act which allowed 5% of the hospital's budget to be used for care of special cases of rare diseases for medical education purposes. He used this 5% of his budget to provide care to uninsured free clinic patients, care that the clinics were unable to offer (i.e., lab, radiology, specialities, acute inpatient care, surgery) and declared them to be special study patients. Thus, the free clinics' patients became beneficiaries of the USPHS, giving the community at large a stake in the preservation of the USPHS Hospital. This led to the formation of the Public Health Care Coalition, the group that would lead the fight against closure. Thurston got to know numerous elected officials throughout his time working at USPHSH with the union and the health care coalition. “Senator Warren G. Magnuson, Maggie, is the greatest in my time, the greatest senator of all times. He had feeling, charisma, patience, and he could work with anyone. He was also head of the Senate Appropriations Committee. He figured that the employees at the hospital would go the extra mile for people who couldn’t afford health care. He set up a program called Upward Mobility which was funded by the federal government. Hospital employees would apply and the executive board would select individuals blindly, without knowing their names. Everyone was assigned a letter such as A, B, C, etc. These individuals would attend college or technical school to advance their education and career. Many started as LPN or RN and got higher degrees including PhD. A lot of them went from nursing assistants to LPNs. The federal government, Maggie, set up the program so that the employees would work their jobs during the day and go to school at night. I also lobbied in Congress to save the USPHSH and although we didn’t save it, we were able to have the building transferred in 1981 from the USPHS, to the Pacific Hospital Preservation and Development Authority, created by the City of Seattle. That was the year I retired.” Although Thurston retired from his job at USPHSH, he did not retreat from work in the community. “For 10 years I was president of the Leschi Community Council. The city gave us 2.4 million dollars to rehab parks, so I did Powell Barnett Park, Flo Ware Park, and Peppi’s Playground. I was also president of the Central Area Senior Center for 10 years where I worked with Will Parry. Will was one of my executive board members at Central Area Senior Center. He was a very outstanding man and did a remarkable job. He would tell you right quick that he didn’t have a lot of money to spend, but he was willing to give his time and efforts to a cause. He and his son raised over $5,000 for the Senior Center. He was very persistent and went after things that people needed. I was grateful to work with him on issues concerning seniors. “I also brought in the Seattle Girls School to Jackson and MLK. I convinced the Leschi Community Council that this is what we need. We wanted the young ladies to be competitive with the young men. In other words, if a man got a degree in mechanical engineering so could a young lady. She could stand as tall as he.” “I was also president of the Central Area Development Association, which helped seniors maintain their homes by painting, doing repair work, and yard maintenance. People on Social Security can’t afford to keep up their homes, so CADA helped with that.” Thurston held these three positions simultaneously. Thurston lost Joyce, his wife of 64 years, to cancer in 2019. “Joyce was an outstanding person and a wonderful wife. She was a lady that loved responsibility. She worked for Frederick and Nelson, in handbags, for 26 years. She didn't like to see children that couldn’t read and didn't know how to do math so she volunteered down at the school. She also volunteered at the Central Area Senior Center working in the kitchen and serving food to other seniors. She could get along with anyone. She could make you feel welcome when you thought that you were all alone. She always had a smile, and she was a real people's person. My greatest thing is helping people, seeing that they enjoy life as well as anybody. I really get disturbed when people in power can do something for others and don't do it. I don't like individuals that prey on others and feel that others are less than they are. I think everyone is entitled to justice and care. If people can’t afford to pay forward, they shouldn’t be mistreated, and they should receive good care. My greatest hope is that people will look upon others with love and peace, not hate, and that everyone will reach out and help someone. Angie Bartels is PSARA's membership VP. This is one in a series of interviews she's conducting with members of PSARA.

Email address, phone, and mailing address for PSARA. Complete this form for general inquiries. Get in Touch Submit Thank you for contacting us! PSARA Directory: PSARA Executive Director Mike Andrew Organizer@psara.org PSARA Co-President s Karen Richter and Jeff Johnson president@psara.org Administrative Vice Presidents Jessica Bonebright Outreach Co-Vice President s Lisa Dekker and Rick Timmins Membership Vice President Angela Bartels Treasurer Tom Lux Government Relations Committee Chair Pam Crone Environmental Committee Co-Chairs Tom Lux, Bob Barnes, Bobby Righi Diversity Committee Co-Chairs Frank Irigon and Anne Watanabe Retiree Advocate Editor Mike Andrew msand76@hotmail.com Retiree Advocate Copy Editor Amy Davis Web Administrator Paul Muldoon Facebook Administrator Ellen Menshew PSARA Education Fund Directory: President Robby Stern Vice President Karen Ric h ter president@psara.org Secretary Barb Flye Treasurer Laila Saliba Board Member Carlos de la Torre Vanetta Molson Advocate Editor Mike Andrew msand76@hotmail.com Copy Editor Amy Davis Photographer Garet Munger Printing Trade Printery Need to reach us? Phone our office in the WSLC at (206) 261-8110. If necessary, leave a message with your phone number. We will call you back.

PSARA Oral Histories Project: Larry Gossett Return to Oral Histories Main Page Larry Gossett Interview PSARA Advocate February 2023 Page 4 Part I March 2023 Page 9 Part Ia July 2023 Page 8 Part II August 2023 Page 8 Part IIa A Story of the Great Migration North (As described by Larry Gossett) By Angie Bartels Larry Gossett is a former King County Council member, a longtime activist, and a member of PSARA's Executive Board. Angie Bartels is PSARA's Membership VP. This story is part of a series of interviews she's doing with PSARA members. Angie Bartels is PSARA's membership VP. This is one in a series of interviews she's conducting with members of PSARA. The Gossett family joined the Great Migration of Blacks leaving the old Confederate States between World War I and the end of World War II. Nearly 6,000,000 Black people headed for northern cities during this time period. Joining this historic migration were Nelmon and Johnnie Gossett. Johnnie was born in Nigton, an all-Black town- ship in southeast Texas.Nelmon was born in Marshall, a very small country town also located in southeast Texas. They had met while students at Texas College, a small historically Black college located in Tyler, Texas. The only work available to Black young adults was picking cotton, so that is what Nelmon was doing in May, 1944, whenthe white boss paid him only one dollar for working from sunup to sundown. Nelmon was no fool – his slip said he wassupposed to get $1.75 that day. He protested to the white boss man and demanded his full pay. The white man replied,“Boy, you don't talk to me like that. You're not going to get no $1.75, nigger. You keep talking, I'm going to whip your assand have you put in jail!” Nelmon was extremely upset and wanted to argue. But he knew there was no way he could win, given the operations of the Jim Crow south. He went home to his new wife, Johnnie, and said, “Honey, we're getting out ofhere, this is it! These white folks are crazy. We are going to leave before I do something I will regret or die from… Where's that place where your sister Editha moved to?” Johnnie said she and her husband Woodson had moved to Seattle, Washington. Nelmon didn’t know where Seattle was, but he knew it was up north. Editha told her younger sister that her husband justgot a job in the war industry up in Seattle. She said they were hiring Negroes in the lower-pay- ing jobs. Nelmon and Johnniepacked their things and joined the Great Black Migration to northern cities. It was mid-July, 1944, when they got on the Greyhound bus heading to Seattle. They had a box of chicken to eat when they boarded the bus in Tyler. Neither of them knew how far Seattle was. After aday on the bus, they got scared and asked the driver, “How much longer before we get to Seattle?” He said, “It will takeabout one more day.” They both wondered, “Oh, my God, where is this place?” The bus driver explained that they weregoing up near Canada, which made them even more nervous. They didn't know what to do, so they just stayed on the busthat sec- ond day and eventually disembarked in Seattle. Nelmon got a job working at Todd Shipyards making $8 a day, way more money than he had ever made picking cotton down South. When they arrived in Seattle, Johnnie went to a doctor and found out she was pregnant with their first child. The only clinicthat would accept her as a low income patient was Thompson Clinic, located on East Broadway Street near the old KingCounty Hospital. When Johnnie, Nelmon, and Editha arrived at the clinic with Johnnie in labor during the early morninghours of February 21, 1945, the white nurse at the front office immediately saw that Johnnie was a “colored girl” and toldher she would have to pay $175 for childbirth care. Nelmon didn’t have any money on him, so the staff said Johnnie and Editha could stay, provided that Nelmon went home and brought back the money. They agreed, and Nelmon went to see if hecould hustle the money up. In the meantime, Johnnie’s water broke while they waited for a room. When the nurse announced to Johnnie and Editha that a birthing room was ready, they were told that this was the roomthey used “for colored girls.” As they walked into the dark and dingy room, the nurse went on, “You colored girls are always having babies, anyway.” The nurse went on with her ignorant and stereotypical lecture, “You colored girls know theroutine.” Then she left the room. Johnnie was only 20 years old and Editha was 26. Neither of them had ever had a baby.They just looked at each other in fear and anxiety. They were young Black women from the South, so they didn’t speak up.And unfortunately, they really didn't know anything about having babies. Johnnie’s labor intensified, and she thought that she had to go to the bathroom. There was a bedside commode, so Edithahelped Johnnie onto it. Johnnie felt like she was having “the worst bowel movement ever.” She kept pushing, and suddenlya baby popped out. The young women were stunned! The nurse had left the room, and neither Johnnie nor Editha knew what to do. Johnnie remembered that she had seen a movie recently with Nelmon in which a baby was born. She remembered the doctor slapping the baby’s behind to get it to cry. So Johnnie slapped her baby’s behind, and itbegan to scream. After the newborn started screaming, then and only then, did a nurse run into the room and finish thebirthing process of properly cutting the umbilical cord, etc. Johnnie finally asked, “What is my baby?” The nurse said he was a boy. Upon Nelmon’s return, he was told that he had aboy. Johnnie and Nelmon proudly named their baby boy Lawrence (Larry) Edward Gossett. Nelmon and Johnnie went on to have five other children: Brenda born in ’47, Ricky in ’49, Glen in ‘52, Theresa in ’53, andPatrick in ’55. And in spite of the ugly racism that weighed against them, they continued to have high hopes for their six children. Johnnie and Nelmon Gossett, Larrry’s parents, stayed with Johnnie’s sister, Editha, the first three months they were in Seattle. In October of 1945, they were lucky enough to secure a one-bedroom apartment in Duwamish Bend, a low- income housing project located in the Georgetown neighborhood of Seattle. During the end of World War II, it wasn’t easy for a newly married Black couple to move from the deep rural South to a bigNorthwest city like Seat- tle. Both Larry’s parents had lived their entire lives in rural Texas, where the racial restrictions wereenforced in an ironclad fashion. In addition to Larry’s parents receiving slave wages for jobs they did in Texas, it was illegalin the South for most Blacks to quit their jobs without the permission of their white bosses. Johnnie and Nelmon Gossett, Larrry’s parents, stayed with Johnnie’s sister, Editha, the first three months they were in Seattle. In October of 1945, they were lucky enough to secure a one-bedroom apartment in Duwamish Bend, a low- income housing project located in the Georgetown neighborhood of Seattle. During the end of World War II, it wasn’t easy for a newly married Black couple to move from the deep rural South to a big Northwest city like Seat- tle. Both Larry’s parents had lived their entire lives in rural Texas, where the racial restrictions were enforced in an ironclad fashion. In addition to Larry’s parents receiving slave wages for jobs they did in Texas, it was illegal in the South for most Blacks to quit their jobs without the permission of their white bosses. Larry said, “When my parents left the South, it was a veritable police state – they had to use separate toilets, water fountains, and restaurants. Blacks were treated as being inferior to ALL white people, and the police kept them under control.” In the North, the white man’s rules weren’t as restricted. Larry’s parents could eat in any restaurant they wanted. They could drink from any water fountain and use any toilet available. Neither of them was called “Nigger” in the days after they migrated to Seattle, but some of the fears learned down South remained within their consciousness. Around December of 1945, Larry’s parents got on a Seattle bus to ride downtown. The bus was very crowded, so they were not able to sit together. Johnnie sat in one of the horizontal seats, while Nelmon sat nervously nearby in a vertical seat next to a white man. After a few more stops, the white man next to Nelmon disembarked. About half a mile later, a young white woman boarded the bus and took the seat next to Nelmon. After a few more stops, Johnnie looked over at her husband and saw he was sweating profusely. Then she heard him say, “Johnnie, we gotta’ get off this bus. I am not feeling well.” They immediately got off the bus, and Johnnie nervously asked Nelmon if he needed her to try and get an ambulance. Nelmon responded, “No, I don’t need an ambulance, honey. The problem is that was the first time in my life I had ever sat next to a white woman, and I was scared to death.” This is a classic example of Black reaction to the ways of white folks in the North versus the South. Larry’s Daddy knew that if had he sat next to a white woman in the South – anywhere in the South – he would be attacked, beaten, jailed, or pos- sibly lynched. In Seattle, Larry’s Dad wasn’t sure what could happen to him if a white woman sat next to him. His southern conditioning made him very scared. By 1956, Nelmon had the best blue- collar job of his life – working for the United States Post Office in West Se- attle. And he had accumulated enough money to buy the family’s first house. Nelmon told Johnnie, “Honey, I want to look for a house out here close to the West Seattle Post Office, so I don't have to drive a long distance to work.” At that time, most Black people in Seattle lived in the Central Area, but Nelmon wanted a house in West Seattle close to his new work place. He went to not one, but two white realtors, both of whom told him the same thing: “If I show a Negro a house in West Seattle, I will get run out of business. But I will show you a house in the Central Area.” The first time he heard this, Nelmon got really mad and went home and devised a new approach. He decided that he would approach a second realtor differently than he did the first. He confidently told the second guy, “I'm looking for a house.” The realtor said, “Okay, why don't we take my car and check a few out.” Nelmon thought they were going to drive around West Seattle, but instead, the realtor drove onto 35th Ave SW headed towards the West Seattle Bridge. At this point, Nelmon knew his cause was hopeless and resolved that he would not get a house in West Seattle. Instead, he bought a house on the corner of 18th and Alder, right smack dab in the middle of the Central Area, where all their new neighbors would be Black. The Gossetts learned that white people in Seattle practiced de facto segregation. “There were no laws saying you can only live in the Central Area, but that was the only place a white real estate agent would dare show you a house. After that experience, Daddy started calling Seattle “up south.” He controlled his anger and got on with it, always working to get the best for his family where it could be gotten. For the first time in his life, Larry was enrolled in an elementary school that was 98.6 percent Black. “The only thing white about that school was the teachers, nothing else,” Nelmon said. But Larry, Brenda, and Ricky adjusted quickly and attended Horace Mann Elementary. Larry made a lot of friends at his new school. His friends introduced him to the Rotary Boys Club, where they played ping pong and basketball. In the 7th grade Larry was sent to mostly-Black Washington Junior High School. There he played on the varsity basketball team as a 7th and 8th grader. “When I was in 11th grade, my daddy purchased his second home on Beacon Hill. I transferred to Franklin High School, which by 1962 was 85 percent white. That was the first time that I consciously went to school with a majority of white kids, and I wasn't as scared as my daddy. I rapped on the white girls and they were responsive. That was an interesting phenomenon because when white man rules, you can't power talk to no white girl. I was an athlete. I wanted to stay at Garfield because I was a basketball player, they were a fabulous team and the kids I grew up with. But I enjoyed Franklin High School in ‘63. Now, I didn't have no racial consciousness or anything like that. “I dated white girls, many of them. Also, some of the white girls started the Larry Gossett Fan Club when I made the varsity Basketball Team at Franklin High School. They wore buttons that said Gossett Fan Club and they were 99 percent white. There was one Chinese girl who became a city council member, Cheryl Chow. She was in the Gossett Fan Club and went to high school with me. My sister kind of got fed up. One day, we’re just sitting around after school and she said, ‘Big Brother, so embarrassing. He doesn't shovel any coal, just snow.’ So Momma didn't know what Brenda was talking about so she says, ‘Brenda, doll, while we were living in High Point, your daddy and Larry shoveled coal into that furnace so we would have heat!' And my sister Brenda got upset with me. ‘Momma, he doesn't go out with any Negro girls, he only goes out with white girls!’ Momma said, 'Oh, that's what you mean! Well, honey, he can go out with whoever he wants.' Poor Brenda left the room in disgust. “I was an athlete in high school, and that had its privileges. I got pretty good grades because I wanted to play college basketball, even though I was very short, 5’7”. So I told my daddy that I wanted to go to junior college because I thought that would be my best chance to start in basketball. And Daddy said, ‘I have something else in mind for you Larry. I've already checked your grades. Your grades are good enough to get into the University of Washington.’ My daddy was the first person I ever heard reference the University of WA as the University of Washington. ‘And that's where I want you to go, boy.’ Daddy called me boy, I don't know where he got that from! And I said, ‘No, Daddy, I want to go to junior college.’ And then Daddy looked at me and said, ‘Boy, now I got to thinking. I'm gonna’ take you to the Registrar’s Office at the University of WA and enroll you.’ And I don't know if you're aware of this but back in the fifties and early sixties, you don't be saying ‘no’ to your black parents. I was 17 so I didn't talk back to Daddy. “The next week he set an appointment with the Registrar and he took me to the University of Washington. The Registrar and Daddy went over my transcripts and she said, ‘Yeah, Larry's grade point average is right up there. But he needs to take geometry.’ I'd had algebra and you couldn't get in the U back in those days without geometry. So Daddy said, ‘What can we do, because I'd like to get him in.’ And she said, ‘Okay, I will enroll him in the University beginning winter quarter, but not in September of ‘64. Then she turned to me and said, ‘I need you, this summer and fall, two quarters, to enroll in geometry at Central Seattle Community College.’ We were living on Beacon Hill then, so I could get over to Broadway easily. ‘But he has to get at least a C in geometry.’ Daddy said, ‘Yes, I'm going to enroll him in school to start winter quarter.’ So, I got a C both quarters, and they let me in the UW in January ‘65. So that's how I got to be at the University of WA. And I knew that I was way too small to try to be able to make the team at the UW. I wanted to but I didn’t get there until January, the third month of basketball season in college. So I didn't even try out. I just focused on becoming a graduate of the University of Washington.” Part II: Black Power Captures Larry Gossett’s Soul While in Vista The American war in Vietnam was escalating in 1965 as President Lyndon Johnson doubled the number of men drafted into the armed services. During this time, selective service requirements, deferments, and exemptions changed rapidly in the government’s efforts to make the draft appear “fairer.” By 1966, a draft lottery was instituted, which no longer provided exemptions to college students. Young men were all given a draft number between 1 and 366, corresponding to their birthday, and lower numbers were called up first. It was at this time that Larry Gossett's life changed dramatically. “I found out in late fall of 1965 that there were only two ways you could avoid the draft, and that was to join the international Peace Corps or the domestic Peace Corps, which was called VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America). The international Peace Corps required a two-year commitment to serve poor people abroad. That made me nervous, because I had never been outside the boundaries of the United States. I had lived my entire life in Seattle, except for the brief period of time that I lived in Los Angeles. But because I learned that VISTA was only a one-year commitment for volunteers to live and work in a poor urban or rural area in the US, I decided to apply. That felt right to me, and fortunately, I was accepted. I became a VISTA volunteer in March of 1966 and was sent to Toledo, Ohio, for three months of training. “All our training instructors were professors or graduate students at University of Toledo. We lived and worked in the Black community of Toledo during our VISTA training. Like most cities in our country, Toledo was racially segregated. I lived on Door Street, and everybody on that street was Black and lived in big ghetto houses reminiscent of those located in the Central Area of Seattle. “Our instructors gave us an interesting list of exciting and inspiring books to read. The most memorable was The Other America, by Michael Harrington, an awe-inspiring historian. His book was very enlightening as it told the truth about what it is like being poor across our nation. I had never read any book like this before, and it had a surprisingly dramatic impact on me. This book made me realize the extent of poverty in Appalachia, among the poor Mexicans, and of course, poor Blacks and Whites. Mr. Harrington’s writing made me empathetic and caring about being poor in America. We were then assigned to read highlighted parts of Manchild in the Promised Land, by Claude Brown, another book which raised my awareness about a poor, young Black kid growing up in Harlem. The streets he had to survive on were far tougher than anything I had experienced in Seattle or even knew existed in our country. Once again, I was surprised by the feelings of anger and frustration I felt about what I had read. “Then our VISTA trainers introduced us to Before the Mayflower, a History of Black America, by Lerone Bennett Jr, one of America's top Black historians. This book, more than any other, made me realize how little of Black history I knew, especially being a third-year university student. I was already a junior at the UW but had never had a class that exposed me to reading this kind of history. Our VISTA instructors had us discuss what we read with them, but the process that proved most meaningful to me was the discussions following our reading of Rules For Radicals, by Saul Alinsky. I realized quickly why this book was a central part of our assigned readings. Mr. Alinsky got right to the point about what a VISTA volunteer’s duty and responsibility must be: “To serve and organize the poor, so that they will desire to be on the front lines in the battle to combat, eliminate, and liberate themselves from the crushing impact of poverty in America.” “By the end of the 12-week training period, my thinking about being poor in the United States was changing, and I had not yet been told where I would be sent as a VISTA volunteer. The head VISTA instructor finally approached me and said, “Mr. Gossett, you are going to be a VISTA in New York City.” He told me I would be working for an anti-poverty program called the Lower East Side Narcotics Center. He explained, “You’ll be working with young addicts and kids who were on the track to possibly becoming drug addicts.” I said, “WOW!” He concluded by explaining to me, “You will hopefully organize an anti-drug youth center for kids under 15 years old on the Lower East Side of Manhattan Island. “I became very excited but nervous about my VISTA placement. I had just turned 21 and had never been east of Idaho before I flew into Toledo a few months before. Now I was about to be sent for a year to the biggest city in the United States, the Big Apple, New York City! “Little did I know that my year in VISTA would become what I still consider to be the signature experience of my life. My flight from Toledo landed at LaGuardia Airport in mid June, 1966. I took a taxi straight to the Lower East Side Narcotics Center. When I got there, a staff person was awaiting my arrival. She had put together a nice packet of information about the agency for me. She had already told me on the phone that the agency had found temporary housing for me at the Henry Street Settlement House, located only a block from the agency. My room did not have a private bathroom, but it was very modern, comfortable, and secure. It was a cool place to spend my first few months living in New York City. Larry was certain his year in VISTA was going to be an important and meaningful life experience. To start it off, he told his family and friends back home in Seattle that he arrived in New York City just two weeks before Stokely Carmichael, the National Chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), articulated a call for BLACK POWER. The phrase spread through all of New York City very quickly, but he reported that it had gone through Harlem like wildfire. Given the trajectory of his life, he felt it had been very fortuitous that he landed in a city so nice they named it twice: New York, New York. In retrospect, he felt very fortunate that he got there at about the same time the Black Power movement arrived. He remembers visiting Harlem and Bedford Stuyvesant, and greeting groups of Black people on the streets with the salutation “Black Power!” Larry said, “I remember greeting people in shops and at the office, ‘Black Power, man, Black Power!’ Everyone in the Black community began greeting each other with the phrase Black Power! so how could I have not been impacted by all of this? “I loved my work with the Lower East Side Narcotics Center, especially the satisfaction I got from setting up a youth center on 5th Street between Avenues C and D. This street was one of the poorest on the Lower East Side. About 80 percent of the youth we served were Puerto Rican and 15 percent were Black. Two other VISTAs worked on the project, and five NYU students came down regularly to volunteer and work with us for school credit. We built a very effective program for about 300 kids who joined the 5th Street Clubhouse within the first month of advertising the club's opening. We set up some of the best English-Spanish tutoring programs, which teachers identified as the best they had ever observed. We took hundreds of kids on field trips that emphasized cultural exposure. I remember in the fall of 1966 taking a group of Black and Puerto Rican youth to the Apollo Theatre to see Gladys Knight and the Pips. As soon as Gladys came out on the stage she said, ‘Black Power Y’all!’ Our youth from the Lower East Side loved it. The whole audience broke out in thunderous applause, responding ‘Black Power’ to her at least 15 times. On the subway home, the kids kept saying ‘Black Power’ including the 9 of the 12 kids who were Puerto Rican, not African American. I loved and learned from these very memorable experiences. Most of these youth had never experienced or thought that they would ever experience a successful drug resistance program. Juvenile counselors would come and check out our program and then work to replicate it. “I think that the Puerto Rican and Black history lessons we taught at the clubhouse raised all of these kids' consciousness about being Black and Puerto Rican in New York. These interventions made a huge difference in whether or not these kids passed their school classes. It also enabled them not to fight against their own people. In this regard, I was surprised how quickly they learned and remembered Puerto Rican and Black creators, who invented things like the concept of zero, the invention of the stop light, and filters that keep electric lights burning for a long time. They loved stories about the Black Buffalo Soldiers and the role they played in the West after the Civil War." Despite the sense of enjoyment I got from working with all these youth on the Lower East Side, I always had a special yearning to work in Harlem. I found out, after about six months of working exclusively on the Lower East Side, that VISTA was looking for supervisors to lead the expansion of their programming in Harlem. Our efforts on the Lower East Side made me a frequent visitor to the office that coordinated VISTA work in the five Boroughs of New York City. So when they found out I would be amenable to working in Harlem, we were able to work a plan where I supervised VISTAs in Harlem for four days a week and continued working about two days a week on the Lower East Side. I was excited because I was already spending a lot of time going to Black Power meetings and demonstrations in Harlem, organized specifically around the unjust effort by the US Congress to kick Adam Clayton Powell out of his House seat where he had been representing Harlem for over 20 years. They accused him of womanizing and missing important meetings. His constituents let it be known that they did not support his expulsion, but Congress successfully, for a short while, voted him out of his seat and called for a new election to replace him. “Harlem was the largest Black ghetto in the United States in 1967. I was told that more than 565,000 people lived in Harlem, nearly all of them Black, Puerto Rican, or Dominican. At the same time, Seattle had a population of about 600,000. But Seattleites occupied land about one hundred times larger than the 45-blocks-long and seven-blockswide space that Harlem occupied. “I was assigned to supervise four VISTAs at Harlem Youth, Inc. The first thing we did was a door-to-door survey on the most crowded block in Harlem. That block was 117th Street between Lenox and 7th Avenue. (Today, Lenox Avenue has been renamed Malcolm X Blvd.) We were also assigned to set up youth programs for kids 11 to 15 years of age on three other blocks: 122nd, 137th, and 143rd Streets. Our survey of 117th Street revealed that about 9,000 people lived in oldand dilapidated eight- and nine story tenement buildings. We couldn’t believe it was possible to have that many people living on one block. I had this same curiosity on the Lower East Side, so I got eight young students at NYU to help me go door to door on 5th Street between Avenues C and D. That block had an estimated 6,000 people living on it. About 1,000 were youth 10 to 15 years of age. This concentrated poverty really impacted and astonished me. I thought it unbelievable that any human being would be forced to live in overcrowded spaces, like the Lower East Side and Harlem. I'm from Seattle, where we had 250 people living on both sides of the street. Yeah, they were all Black, but in Harlem, they were all Black too. In Harlem and on the Lower East Side they had five, six, seven people living in every tiny one- and two-bedroom unit, on every floor, in these roach- and rat-infested tenement buildings that occupied every block. I read in the Amsterdam News, the Black newspaper of Harlem, that 60 percent of all the Black people in Harlem lived below the poverty line. “This survey made me dig out an article I had read in the summer of 1966, in The New York Times. It said that if every person in the United States were to live in New York City, and the population of each block would be based on the average number of people living on the average block in Harlem, which at the time was about 7,000 people, all 300 million Americans would fit on just one-half the blocks in New York City. This was a shocking reality to me, the estimate of how crowded these conditions in Harlem and the Lower East Side were. “In his autobiography, Malcolm X said that on average, two to three Blacks were killed every week in Harlem by police, that Blacks owned no more than two percent of all the stores on 125th Street, and that there was only one high school, Franklin, serving 565,000 people in Harlem – and nearly 70 percent of the students in Harlem dropped out of school by the 9th grade. These school statistics really shocked me. I recalled that in Seattle there were 12 public and 4 Catholic high schools, while Harlem had only one. That's how oppressed and segregated the African American population was in Harlem.” Larry became a frequent visitor to Michaux’s bookstore, (technically called the National Memorial African Book Store, but known to the community as Michaux’s), Harlem’s premiere bookstore, located on 125th Street. This bookstore was a great reservoir of Black history and culture. Larry started reading everything he could afford to purchase on Malcolm X and on past and present great Black writers, who wrote about the experiences of Black people in Harlem during the 20th Century. “One of the clerks in the bookstore with whom I had struck up a friendship said to me one day, ‘Larry, you should read something a little broader than just Black history. You seem to be serious about social movements. Why don't you read Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels? Why don't you read the Communist Manifesto?’ I replied, ‘Where I grew up, everyone says that Communism is bad and evil.’ He said, ‘You have to broaden your horizons. You need to be able to make interconnections between the struggles of poor people here in Harlem, Seattle, and with other places around the world. Karl Marx and Fred Engels will provide you with some good food for thought that you should be aware of. “His persistence had an influence on me, so I bought the Communist Manifesto. I took it home and read it, and went back to the brother who had urged me to read it. I said, ‘Wow, I wonder why I was never encouraged to read this at the UW!’ ‘What made the most sense to you, my man?’ he asked. You have to remember, I'm a descendant of Africans brought to America to work as chattel slaves for 246 straight years for no pay. It made sense to me when they said, ‘the people who do the work in any society or community ought to have a major say in determining where the fruits of their labor go and for what it is spent.’ Maybe they call that communism or whatever, but it made a lot of sense to me. I was thinking, why was I so scared to read stuff about socialism before? “In short, when I left Michaux’s bookstore, VISTA, and NYC at the end of my year and a half in VISTA, I was a radically changed man – philosophically, dress, attitude, values, everything. I even changed my name from Larry Gossett to Oba Yoruba. I would never go back to being bourgeoisie and brainwashed again. VISTA had changed me, the Black Power movement had captured my soul, and I was down for the cause and the people. “At the end of my VISTA term, I wanted to go back home. Many VISTAs stayed in the community that they worked in, but I always had the intention of going back home to Seattle. I landed in Seattle on September 15th, 1967, and my mother and youngest brother, Patrick, came to the gate of the airport to pick me up. But guess what happened? Both walked right by without recognizing me. I had a lot of hair, a big natural, and I wore a dashiki and African beads, and like other Black Power advocates, I wore sunglasses. Finally, I said the magic word, ‘Momma.’ She and Patrick recognized me by my voice. Momma looked at me and said, ‘Larry, is that you, boy?’ She kept calling me Larry, and I should have waited until I got home, but I said, ‘Momma, my n ame is Oba Yoruba.’ And she said, ‘Yuba who? Boy, I gotta get you home so your daddy can see you.’ I smiled confidently and walked to the car with Momma and my little brother, Patrick. “The entire Gossett family embraced the changes I had gone through, after a while that is, and supported me in my work for social justice through the Black Power movement we were about to establish on the campus of the University of Washington and in Seattle's Black community."

PSARA Officers PSARA Officers Mike Andrew Executive Director/Editor Advocate Mike Andrew, PSARA’s Executive Director and Editor of The Retiree Advocate, is a journalist by trade. He came to PSARA as Associate Editor of The Retiree Advocate in April 2011, became a part-time and then a full-time PSARA organizer, and was hired as Executive Director in December 2018. Prior to coming on board with PSARA, Mike was a full-time reporter for Seattle Gay News. Before that, he was a fishmonger. He is capable of breaking down a salmon in 90 seconds and then turning around and writing a story about it. Mike has managed two political campaigns, one win and one loss. He’s proudest of the loss, however, because his candidate spent only 60 cents per vote and still came in at 46%. He is a member of the National Writers Union, and Pride At Work, an LGBTQ labor organization affiliated with the AFL-CIO. Mike was born in San Francisco, went to UC Berkeley, and then came to Seattle for grad school. Mike currently lives in Seattle with his husband, Simon, and their cat, Noel. Email: organizer@psara.org Karen Richter Co-President/Fund Raising Chair Karen Richter is a retired public servant, who worked as a transportation planner in Tucson, Chicago and Seattle and is a retired AFSCME member. She is a co founder of the Chicago chapter of the Women’s Transportation Seminar. Currently she is the Co-President of the Puget Sound Advocates for Retirement Action and the Vice President of the PSARA Education Fund. She also is the chair of the PSARA Fundraising Committee, and is an active member of the 34th Legislative District Democrats. She also works with the Social Security Works, Wa Coalition. Karen is an avid birder, organic gardener and loves spending time in her home and neighborhood in wonderful West Seattle. Tom Lux Treasurer Tom Lux is a 35 year member of the Machinists Union and was on the staff of the union for eight years and serves as a member of the Aerospace Joint Apprenticeship Committee. He is on the Visiting Committee of the Harry Bridges Chair at the UW and is the President of the Pacific Northwest Labor History Association. Richard Burton Co-Outreach Vice President I have been a PSARA member for approximately 10 years. I was a philosophy teacher at Seattle Central [Community!] College from 1992 till 2007 and served on the executive board of my faculty union local there, AFT Seattle 1789, from 1995 till 2007. I was involved with the Seattle King County organizing committee of Jobs with Justice, and was a delegate to the Martin Luther King County Labor Council through much of that time. I started working as a political organizer with AFT Washington then and have worked for several other unions since then (in New York and Maryland). I am now happily back working at AFT Washington. Lynne Dodson Secretary Lynne Dodson is back in the PNW after a stint on the east coast. She’s moving toward retirement, working three days a week with UFCW 3000 and WeTrain as a Workforce Development Director. Back east, she was the dean of the Harry Van Arsdale School for Labor Studies in NYC, before moving to the DC area to work with UFCW international. Lynne was the Secretary Treasurer of the WA State Labor Council, AFL-CIO for two terms prior to that. She came to that position after serving the faculty of the Seattle Colleges as president for AFT 1789 for many years. Besides being a union activist, leader, and trainer, she loved teaching Psychology in Seattle’s community college system. Lynne and her delightful husband, Richard Burton, are building a family home in Gig Harbor because Joey Sanger (with Briony DeKlerk) and Kia Sanger (with Bernard Rodriguez) recently bore grand-daughters!!! Willow-Rain DeKlerk Sanger; and Helena Lluvia Rodriquez Sanger (and their parents) will eventually all return from far off lands to live in lovely Pierce County. Lynne has a passion for justice and building the beloved community and is delighted to be joining the PSARA Executive Board to fight for a more just, equitable, and sustainable world. Jeff Johnson Co-President Jeff Johnson is the former President of the Washington State Labor Council (WSLC) which represents more than 500,000 employees in the state of Washington. Formerly the research Director of the WSLC, Jeff in his former life was a college professor. He is currently on the board of the Labor Network for Sustainability where he focuses on the intersection between labor, climate change and climate justice including a “Just Transition”. Email: president@psara.org Jessica Bonebright Administrative Vice President Retired from Boeing and SPEEA, IFPTE 2001 staff. PSARA delegate to WA Senior Lobby, Former President of Martin Luther King Jr, County Labor Council, MLKCLC ending in 2015. Active with 11th district democrats. Past KCLS Library Trustee and Past United Way KC Board. Angie Bartels Membership Vice-President Angie Bartels comes from a large working-class family and was born and raised on the southern shores of the Ohio River in 1956. College was out of reach, so she devoted those years to the United Farm Workers Union and raising her daughter. She worked with the UFW’s boycott from KY to Ohio and finally in the San Joaquin Valley of CA where she learned Spanish. She came to Seattle in 1978 and while working as a legal assistant, volunteered for many years in the sanctuary movement for Central American refugees. Finally, at the age of 37, she earned her bachelor’s in nursing at the UW. She devoted her nursing career to low income, uninsured patients at the 45 th St. Clinic where she was the diabetes educator for nearly 20 years. She also worked for 13 years in HIV and other infectious diseases at Bailey Boushay and the Madison Clinic at Harborview. She retired at the age of 58 in 2014 due to her own health issues and her husband’s ALS diagnosis. She nursed Tony through his battle with ALS for seven years until his death in November 2020. As well as Membership VP for PSARA, she serves as the surrogate grandmother or “auntie” for the baby of a low-income immigrant family. “It was the height of the pandemic and Tony was gone. I didn’t have anything to do and they needed child care so why not help a family in need? After all, I was a single mom for all those years so I understand some of the struggles that young families go through. It just seemed to make sense and indeed it has brought happiness and purpose to my life once again.” Lisa Dekker Co-Outreach Vice-President After 25 years in Seattle, Lisa and her husband retired to the North Olympic Peninsula in 2016. Her activism began by volunteering with the Seattle Sierra Club. While working for Washington Community Action Network on healthcare and social justice issues, she learned about PSARA and became a member. She is now part of a small but mighty Clallam County/PSARA team working to grow support on the Peninsula. She is also, in orca costume, a part of the North Olympic Orca Pod educating the public about our Southern Resident orca. Cindy Domingo Co-Outreach Vice President Cindy Domingo has been an activist for 50 years using her skills as an organizer, writer, political strategist, mentor, public servant and speaker to create social and radical change in the world. She is currently the Board Chair of LELO, A Legacy of Equality Leadership and Organizing, an organization led by people of color and whose mission is to empower low-income workers of color, recent immigrants and women workers to assert their rights, improve their working conditions and gain their voice in their workplaces, trade unions and communities in the US and across the globe. Cindy is also in leadership of the Seattle Chapter of the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance and has also served on numerous boards locally including International Examiner Newspaper, Church Council of Greater Seattle and Community to Community. Nationally, she has served on the boards of National Asian Pacific Women’s Forum, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom and is in the leadership of Akbayan North America. Cindy has focused her work on the liberation of women and girls and building international solidarity between the peoples of the Philippines and the US and ending the 60 years old US blockade of Cuba.

Save Traditional Medicare stop WISeR The Trump Administration has been busy devising a new threat to your Traditional Medicare benefits. On January1, 2026 they are introducing a new control on Traditional Medicare in a six state demonstration program, which includes Washington State. This program, called WISeR, is an attempt to control your medicare benefits by requiring prior authorization before you and your doctor can make certain medical decisions. The administration is outsourcing these decisions to private companies whose compensation will be based on how much cost savings they can generate by limiting or eliminating patient procedures. PSARA opposes this demonstration and we are in good company. On this page you can access Senator Patty Murray’s video outlining her opposition, WA State Insurance Commissioner Patty Kuderer’s critique and concerns with the program, as well as the American Medical Associations letter in opposition to the program. This is an ongoing effort by the Trump administration to end traditional medicare in an attempt to further outsource Medicare to private equity companies. This despite the ongoing issues of private equities investments in the medical industry and Medicare advantage in particular. Our brief slide presentation below will provide you with more background on WISeR and what you can do to prevent it. (Double click on the slide presentation to expand to full screen) Click here to hear Senator Patty Murray’s concerns on President Trump’s WISeR Program for Traditional Medicare beneficiaries On November 7, Rep DelBene introduced HR 5940, the “Seniors Deserve Smarter Care Act” that would prohibit implementation of WISeR. Read WA State Insurance Commissioner Patty Kuderer’s critique and concerns with the WISeR Program Read the American Medical Association ’ s letter in opposition to WISeR On December 6th PSARA Board Members Robby Stern and Anne Watanabe (hosted by Dan Grey and Evegreen State College) discuss the attacks on Medicare and Medicaid. Click here to hear the interview 1/15

2025 PSARA WA State Legislative Agenda Activity Report (week of April 20 , 2025 ) Listed below are the Bills that PSARA is following that will have hearings in the coming week. In Washington State you do not need to attend the hearing to express your support for a specific bill, you can sign in to the Legislative Committee page and express your support or opposition. Legislators have repeatedly told us that signing in and indicating your support or opposition to a bill is very important for a bill ’ s success. Che ck out TVW.org to watc h both live and archived hearings. I highly recommend the legislative review that you can watch daily for highlights from hearings and floor action (if the links are not working please paste into your browser: https://tvw.org/shows/legislative-review/ ) Please see below for PSARA’s Weekly Legislative Report: PSARA Weekly WA Legislative Update April 20, 2025 Pam Crone, Chair Government Relations Committee Dear PSARA Executive Board and Activists, Below is a description of the new revenue package the House and Senate drafted after Governor Ferguson stated he would not support the wealth tax. The compilation was created by a former lobbying colleague Majken Ryherd I have also included the Governor’s statement characterizing the package as “unsustainable" and “too risky.” The regular session ends April 27. If no agreement is reached by then, further action will have to occur in a special session. This will be my last weekend update. Thank you for reading it each week, signing in on PSARA priorities at committee hearings, and contacting your legislators. Please see the May Retiree Advocate for an almost final legislative wrap-up. Do note that session will not have ended when the Advocate went to press. Thank you all. Best, Pam New Revenue Package Capital Gains and Estate Taxes - SB 5813 (Wilson, D-30) / HB 2082 (Street, D-37) Adds a 2.9% excise tax on capital gains over $1 million, on top of the current 7% tax applied to gains over $270,000 (adjusted annually for inflation). Increases estate tax rates for individuals who pass away after January 1, 2025. Raises the estate tax exclusion from $2.1 million to $3 million. Revenue from this bill would go to the Education Legacy Trust Account. Passed Senate Ways & Means on 4/18. Business and Occupation (B&O) Tax Surcharges - SB 5815 (Saldaña, D-37) / HB 2081 (Fitzgibbon, D-34) Increases B&O tax rates on sectors such as manufacturing, retail, child care, and gambling. Imposes a 0.5% surcharge on businesses with state income over $250 million. Raises rates on existing B&O surcharges. Funds would support public schools, higher education, healthcare, and social services. Was not considered in Senate Ways & Means on 4/18. Scheduled for executive session in House Finance on 4/19. Property Tax Cap Adjustment - SB 5812 (Wellman, D-41) / HB 2049 (Bergquist, D-11) Adjusts the annual 1% cap on property tax increases to allow for growth tied to inflation and population, capped at 3%. Revenue would support K–12 education, including special education. Was not considered in Senate Ways & Means on 4/18. Scheduled for executive session in House Finance on 4/19. Sales Tax on Services and Nicotine Products - SB 5814 (Frame, D-36) / HB 2083 (Stonier, D-49) Expands the state’s sales and use tax to cover services like IT consulting and advertising. Includes all nicotine products, whether synthetic or tobacco-derived, under the tobacco products tax. Requires a one-time prepayment of state sales tax from businesses with $3 million+ in taxable retail sales in 2026. The revenue would support education, healthcare, social services, and other programs. Passed Senate Ways & Means on 4/18. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Contact: Brionna Aho, Governor's Communications Director, Brionna.aho@gov.wa.gov, 360-628-3843 Governor Bob Ferguson comment on proposed $12B in taxes Trump Administration cuts and chaos continue to cast shadow over state budget OLYMPIA — Governor Bob Ferguson offered the following statement on the Legislature’s proposal for $12 billion in taxes: “I thank legislators for their hard work as we balance a budget with a $16 billion shortfall. While our budget situation is currently challenging, it may soon become dire with additional cuts and chaos from the Trump Administration. We must defend Washington in the face of that. “Federal funds make up 28 percent of our state budget. That includes billions of dollars for Medicaid, K-12 education, child welfare and early learning, disaster recovery and response, unemployment insurance and more. Every day, funding is canceled, frozen or denied by the Trump Administration and Elon Musk. Last week, FEMA denied our request for emergency relief funds for November’s bomb cyclone. We don’t know exactly why — they did not offer a reason — but we know we met the criteria set out for this funding. The administration is attempting to cut $160 million in public health funding . “Significant federal cuts loom for Medicaid, early learning , K-12 education , scientific research , health care and emergency response . “Families are also bearing the burden of the Trump Administration’s tariffs, making everything from groceries to car repairs more expensive. Tariffs will hit Washington — one of the most trade dependent states in the nation — especially hard. Nearly $120 billion in exports and imports flowed through Washington state ports last year. Approximately 40 percent of our jobs are tied to trade. Tariffs on our biggest trading partners will be damaging to our economy, and particularly hurt our farmers. “We must ensure Washington is in the best possible financial position to weather more cuts and damaging economic policies from a Trump Administration that weaponizes funding to punish those it disagrees with and forces them into compromising their values. “We need a balanced approach, using a reasonable amount of progressive revenue and adopting solutions to reduce our spending. “At a time of great economic uncertainty and assaults by the Trump Administration on core state services for working families, raising $12 billion in taxes is unsustainable, too risky and fails to adequately prepare Washington state for the crisis that looms ahead. “That said, the Legislature has made progress on key issues in its updated revenue proposals. Legislators are working hard and putting in long hours. They have moved away from their reliance on an untested wealth tax and made progress on addressing our regressive tax system. “We will continue to work together to produce a budget that supports a strong economy, and the people of Washington.” ###

Medicare Advantage is proving to be a bad investment for many health insurance companies and private equity.

Ann Widger, Director, AFSCME Retirees Letter to Retired Federal Employees I have been working to protect Social Security for almost 30 years and I’ve never seen so many attacks against the Social Security system and the people who depend on it. They’re hoping you’ll stay quiet while they trample over many seniors' only source of income after retirement. Do you still trust them to protect the benefits you earned? Tell us where you stand. Just look at what they’ve done to Social Security — and it’s only June. Project 2025 architect Russell Vought — who admitted he wants to slash Social Security — is now running the federal budget. DOGE, under Elon Musk, demanded access to private Social Security data — and forced the acting Commissioner to resign when she said no. The SSA announced office cuts that guarantee longer wait times, delayed benefits, and total chaos for retirees and disabled workers. Musk went on national TV, called Social Security a “Ponzi scheme”, and declared it “the big one to eliminate.” Social Security is YOUR money and you are entitled to it. When a federal judge blocked DOGE from accessing your personal data, Commissioner Leland Dudek threw a tantrum and threatened to shut the whole program down. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick publicly mocked seniors, saying his 94-year-old mother-in-law wouldn’t miss a Social Security check — and that only “fraudsters” complain. Reports surfaced that wait times for benefits are projected to skyrocket — from 236 days to 412. Deaths while waiting for disability could more than double, reaching 67,000 people a year. DOGE falsely declared living Americans dead or undocumented, cutting off their benefits without warning and putting their ability to pay their rent and buy groceries at risk. The Senate confirmed Frank Bisignano, a billionaire known for gutting jobs and services, to run the SSA. The White House announced plans to defund the Social Security Advisory Board — eliminating oversight just as the attacks ramp up. And that new commissioner? Bisignano admitted he had to Google the job. He didn’t even know what the SSA did — and now he controls benefits for 70 million Americans. And just last week, the Supreme Court ruled to give DOGE access to your personal Social Security information, even though many DOGE staffers are not properly training on accessing personal data and are not qualified to have access to such sensitive information. This isn’t politics. It’s sabotage. What This Means for You: Reports indicate a surge in early retirement claims, as individuals fear benefit reductions or disruptions to what is their main source of income. Social Security recipients have started noticing changes. Longer drives to reach the nearest office. Longer wait times on the phone. No response. One AFSCME Retiree — Louisa Pedraza — was told she would hear back soon about her Social Security. She heard nothing. The attacks not only strained the SSA's resources but the misinformation and lies spread by Elon Musk and his minions have also eroded trust in the system — paving the way for even more cuts. They said they wouldn’t touch Social Security. Instead, they infiltrated it, accessed private information, fired the staff, closed the offices, spread lies about fraud and threatened to shut the entire program down. Did they think you wouldn’t notice? Do you trust them with your Social Security? Tell us what you think here. In Solidarity, Ann Widger P.S. Social Security is more than just a program; it's a promise made to every American. It’s food on the table and a roof over the heads of millions of Americans. Let's ensure that promise is kept and that we’re not cheated out of everything we’ve worked for. Contributions or gifts to the American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees PEOPLE (AFSCME PEOPLE) are not deductible for federal income tax purposes. All contributions to AFSCME PEOPLE are voluntary and will be used to support pro-worker candidates in federal, state and local elections. Contributions are not a condition of membership or employment and refusal to contribute is free of reprisal. Any contribution guideline is only a suggestion, and you may contribute more or less than that amount or nothing at all, and you will not be favored or disadvantaged because of your contribution amount or decision not to contribute. In accordance with federal law, AFSCME PEOPLE accepts contributions only from AFSCME members, executive and administrative personnel, and their families. Contributions from other persons will be returned. If you would prefer to donate to AFSCME PEOPLE offline, please click here . All content © 2025 AFSCME Retirees Privacy Policy

How To Make America Sick The Trump administration’s plan to “Make America Healthy Again” will make Americans’ health worse. Donald M. Berwick In the Advocate August 2025: Donald M. Berwick, MD. How To Make America Sick The Trump administration’s plan to “Make America Healthy Again” will make Americans’ health worse. Donald M. Berwick, MD. Reprinted from the Center for American Progress website. It might seem obvious that the United States, the wealthiest country on earth, would have the best health and health care. But we do not. Not even close. So when President Donald Trump, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and their allies in Congress propose to “Make America Healthy Again,” it’s easy to get on board. The trouble is that their plan won’t work. In fact, it will make Americans’ health worse. They are currently proposing to cut Medicaid and Medicare, decimate public health structures, withdraw support for food security and other basic needs, and harm the environment all of which is dead wrong from a scientific viewpoint. There is no disputing that America’s health care system needs a dramatic overhaul. U.S. life expectancy ranks 49th globally at more than four years lower than that of the world’s healthiest countries. Our children’s health ranks 36th among the 38 richest nations. Not a single U.S. state has an average life expectancy longer than that of comparably wealthy nations. If the goal is to make America as healthy as other wealthy nations, it would be hard to do worse than we are doing right now. And for that terrible performance, the United States spends twice as much per capita on health care as the average wealthy country—with more than 110 million Americans struggling with medical debt. So, yes, by all means, let’s “make America healthy.” However, unlike how the Trump administration and RFK Jr. are going about it, doing so requires following the science. In 2015, the revered British epidemiologist Michael Marmot wrote “The Health Gap,” arguably the best playbook for making any country healthier. The book summarizes decades of research on why health varies enormously among places with ostensibly similar conditions. The gap in health outcomes can be between nations, between sub- groups within nations, and even across the tracks in a single city. For example, Black Americans had a lifespan six years shorter than that of white Americans in 2021; residents of west Chicago live 14 years less than residents of the Chicago Loop; and across the city of Boston, lifespan varies by more than two decades. Marmot sorts known causes of health gaps into buckets including early childhood experiences, education, workplace conditions, supports to the elderly, and community “resilience”; he also looks at the impact of attributes such as food security, housing security, transportation systems, clean air, compassionate criminal justice systems, and recreational opportunities. Through that lens, a scientifically guided plan for “making America healthy” is simple to devise: Invest in what drives health. This is why what RFK Jr. and the Trump administration are doing makes no sense. Watch the administration, and it would be hard to find a better way to “make America sick.” It’s like “opposite day”: Every single component of the Marmot playbook is being not only neglected but controverted through the administration’s actions. Let’s run the list. Kids Healthy societies tend to place their bets on safe perinatal care, strong supports for the early years—say, from birth to age 3—and school readiness, which means not only helping children but also their parents. Contrast that with the House-passed One Big Beautiful Bill Act that instead cuts food stamps by nearly $300 billion and enacts a historic $793 billion cut to Medic- aid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which cover 50 percent of the children in America. Education People in countries and regions with strong educational systems, especially those that include girls and women, tend to live longer. Overall, the U.S. education system ranks 31st in the world, and it varies widely, with many schools performing poorly and many students underachieving. This is neither the teachers’ fault nor the students’. It boils down to ensuring that all children and youth, regardless of where they live or how wealthy their families are, have access to the highest quality education. The proper response would be to pour resources into delivering on that promise. On the contrary, the Trump administration’s plan calls for slashing funding for the Department of Education, cutting support to K-12 programs, and eliminating federal subsidies for student loans. Workers Job security is also foundational to national health. Unionization, which has been backwatered in the United States, is one straight shot to improving worker power. So is raising the federal minimum wage far above its embarrassingly low level of $7.25 per hour, instituting stronger legal protections for workers’ rights, and establishing more equity in tax and compensation policies. The Trump administration, meanwhile, seeks to abolish the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, hamstring the Department of Labor, reduce bargaining rights for federal workers, weaken worker protections, and cut the essential food assistance and health care programs that the working class relies on, all to give massive tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans. Seniors How a nation supports its aging and elderly population affects not only how long and well its older citizens live, but also the health and well-being of a country’s entire population. The Trump administration claims to want to protect Medicare—a mainstay of security for those age 65 and older in the country—but study the details of what the president and his congressional allies are doing so far, and you will find steadily weakening protections for coverage, reduced access to care, and thousands of dollars more in out-of-pocket costs. For example, Medicaid, which has been torpedoed by the Trump-signed reconciliation bill, is the primary payer for 63 percent of people in nursing homes. Where are the elderly Americans who rely on that care supposed to go? Communities Healthy communities help ensure access to nutrition, housing, safety, mobility, and opportunity for everyone. The Trump administration is already weakening every one of those things and is poised to damage them further. The administration is hurting public transportation systems and rolling back environmental controls for particulate air pollution. It is also publicly in favor of coal and against wind power, against public housing expansion, against mental health supports to help reduce violence, and has backpedaled on criminal justice reform. Conclusion President Trump and Secretary Kennedy can preach all they want about making us healthy again, but their rhetoric is no substitute for facts. The right way to “Make America Healthy Again” is to invest in the infrastructure, programs, and priorities that we know, based on scientific evidence, will actually improve health—the very same ones that the Trump administration seems intent on destroying. Donald M. Berwick, MD, is President Emeritus and Senior Fellow at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, and a former Administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). BACK TO THE ADVOCATE