Arm yourself with these eight facts on health care, Medicare, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act:

1. We have a health care cost problem, not a Medicare or Medicaid problem. Health care costs overall, including through employment-based plans, individual coverage and Medicare and Medicaid, have been growing faster than the whole economy—2.4% greater on average since 1970. Between 2000 and 2010, workers’ contributions to premiums for health insurance at work jumped 147%, compared to just a 36% increase in workers’ earnings. See "Medicare, Medicaid and the Deficit Debate," a report from the Urban Institute.

AFL-CIO, AFL-CIO Latino, Working America and other groups live tweeted reactions to last night's vice presidential debate. Read the responses below. 

Text DEBATE to AFLCIO (235246) to join our text action team. (Standard messaging and data rates may apply.)

Remember Nuns on the Bus? This summer's inspiring anti-poverty movement arrived in New York City on Monday, where the nuns and their supporters promptly hopped off the bus and onto the Staten Island Ferry to highlight how Republican budget proposals would impact poverty programs throughout the state. The group's leader, Sister Simone Campbell, told ThinkProgress that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's comments about the "47 percent" were "shocking." 

America needs good jobs and shared prosperity, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told delegates at the Democratic National Convention tonight. It’s abundantly clear the Romney-Ryan ticket is only offering prosperity for the rich and an economic nightmare for everyone else, whether it's cutting Medicare and Social Security, giving the rich more tax breaks or outsourcing America's jobs. “Prosperity requires democracy—starting with the essential right of everyone in this great country to a voice, both in the ballot box and in the workplace.” 

Prosperity requires economic security. Working Americans will stand with leaders who protect and strengthen Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid—not those who plan cuts to benefits working people have paid for, earned and are counting on. 

Last week, we discussed that the Republican Party platform is a road map to dismantle workers’ rights. Steven Greenhouse of The New York Times says the Republican platform “calls for numerous steps that could significantly weaken America’s labor unions” and, for the first time in years, doesn’t even acknowledge the right to form unions.

The New York Times reports, when doing a side-by-side comparison of the platforms, the two visions are “poles apart in their view of the nation.”

Let’s take a look at some of the major differences:

Ninety-two years ago yesterday, U.S. women won the right to vote.

The Indiana State AFL-CIO mentioned in an e-mail yesterday, Rose Schneiderman, who headed the Women’s Trade Union League, explained in 1918:

We want to tell our Senators that the working women of our State demand the vote as an economic necessity. We need it because we are workers and because the workers are the ones that have to carry civilization on their backs.

The anniversary is a good time to reflect on how women would fare under a Romney-Ryan administration.

If Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan were really interested in maximizing taxpayer money to get the most bang for the buck, they would not push to cut Social Security and Medicare. (And, in the case of Medicare, the Romney/Ryan plan would raise health care costs for seniors on average by $11,000, with today’s 54-year old paying $59,500 in increased Medicare costs. 

Rather than cutting Social Security and Medicare, they should strengthen both programs.

Here’s why.

AFL-CIO Political Director Michael Podhorzer sends us this. 

Inside the Beltway, (and among tea party activists for whom facts are not particularly relevant)—Paul Ryan is quite well known as a principled fiscal conservative by those who have not actually looked at his proposals but who have fallen for his supposed “truth telling” wonkery. The very "serious people" in Washington admire him because he talks about hard choices. Yet, every objective budget analyst who has looked at his plans know that he’s inviting us to engage in magical thinking. Cut just about everything (without getting too specific) to give even more tax cuts for the rich and, well, the budget will be balanced someday.  Some say that Romney’s already laughably low-paid tax rate would drop to near zero under Ryan’s plan.  

As Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan travel the country peddling their budget that would decimate Medicare, cut Social Security and give millionaires more tax breaks they don't need, union activists are reminding voters what their economic plans mean for working families. AFGE and other unions protested outside Sheldon Adelson's Venetian hotel and casino in Las Vegas, Nev., yesterday during a Paul Ryan fundraiser. 

Happy 77th birthday, Social Security. As we celebrate Social Security's anniversary, let’s remember it has never missed a check. Despite Congressman (now vice presidential candidate) Paul Ryan's claim it’s “going broke,” Social Security has a $2.7 trillion surplus (going broke, really?) and is financially sound, despite the recession, high unemployment and stagnation of workers' income across the board. It has provided insurance against loss of wages for seniors and people with disabilities and pays out benefits in the form of survivor benefits to children who lose a working parent.