Former Governor Sarah Palin falsely claimed that under proposed health reform legislation, a "death panel" of bureaucrats would "decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether [patients] are worthy of health care." The truth is, there's no such panel mentioned anywhere in the bill.
In an attempt to stall or even derail health insurance reform, many Republican officials have continually made false and outlandish claims that distort the truth about the reforms that are actually being proposed.
Special interest groups continue to rely on scare tactics and mistruths to create confusion and distort the debate. In many cases, they’ve attacked provisions that don’t even appear in any of the health-care measures under consideration.
Many people have received anti-health-reform chain emails filled with blatantly false claims.
These disruptions are being organized and funded by special interest groups who are trying desperately to preserve the status quo. One of the groups behind these disruptions – Conservatives for Patients' Rights – is being helped by some of the same people behind the notorious 'Swift Boat' ads of 2004.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2009/10/30/honoring-legacy-ryan-white
President Obama signed the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Extension Act of 2009. It represents our ongoing commitment to ensuring access to needed HIV/AIDS care and treatment. The White House and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) worked very closely with Congress on this bipartisan legislation, and the consensus document developed by the HIV/AIDS advocacy community was an important part of the process. We were so pleased that Jeanne White-Ginder, Ryan White’s mother, was here at the bill signing.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2009/10/27/vaccinations-first-family
While the initial distribution of vaccine is being administered to priority target groups, there are steps every family can take to help protect against H1N1 and seasonal flu. Remember to check Flu.gov for the latest on vaccine availability near you, steps you can take to protect your family, and what to do if you or a loved one gets the flu.
Catherine Mccormick-Lelyveld is Press Secretary for the First Lady
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Weekly-Address-Taking-the-Insurance-Companies-on-Down-the-Stretch/
As the health insurance reform debate enters into its final stages in Congress, the President denounces the desperate and deceptive last-ditch efforts of the health insurance companies to derail it.
download .mp3 |download .mp4 (212 MB) | read the transcript
After fighting health reform with lies, deceit, and multi-million dollar ad campaigns, the health insurance lobby -- America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) -- recently released a report on the "effects of health reform." Surprise! It's full of flawed claims that reform would increase costs.
Many journalists and experts called the report "deceptive" and "implausible." Even the firm that wrote it now admits they only looked at parts of the health reform plan -- because that's what the insurance lobby paid them to do. It's exactly what we should expect from an industry that's been fighting tooth and nail to kill reform, and is now preparing an all-out assault.
We're not going to take it sitting down. So this week, we're calling out the health insurance lobby.
The lobby has invested millions trying to convince Congress to oppose reform. So this week, we're not simply debunking lies: The best way to Call 'em Out is to cut through the spin and tell our representatives to say "no" to deceitful lobbyists and "yes" to reform.
Soon, health reform will be taken up by the entire House and Senate, and the insurance lobby will take their attacks to a new level. Their lies will grow more extreme -- and it will be more important than ever that our voices are louder than those of the Washington lobbyists.
Call out the health insurance lobby today: http://www.democrats.org/CallOutAHIP
Then send this link out to everyone you know. Please.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Word-from-the-White-House-New-York-Times-Debunks-Medicare-Scare-mongering/
If we are going to fight let's go for the real thing.
Enough with the Public Option, it covers, at best 5% of us, when Obama says, if you like what you have you can keep it, the most important statement is lacking: if you hate it, you can leave it. All the PO does is to create another entitlement for people to resent.
By eliminating the middleman, you pay a lot less and Drs get pay better.
Single payer is actually an easier sale, as it answers that very human question: "What's in it for me?"
http://healthcare4all.org/
We need volunteers to help out at our Central Washington state fair booth in Yakima, Washington especially September 25 to October 2, 2009. The times available change very quickly but they will be between 11 am to 10 or 11 pm. You and your friend will each receive a FREE fair pass for each four hours volunteer time. So go to http://tinyurl.com/VOLUNTEErforYakimaDemocrats and click on the evens like to RSVP you and your friend NOW... Yakima County Democrats are now on Twitter at http;//www.twitter.com/ycdemocratsSo come follow us for all kind of fun information that you just can not live without.
Thanks Randall (509.654.9740 or 509.210.2701) or questions e-mail: ycdemocrats@q.com
Must read http://kucinich.us/index.php
Enough with the public option, it covers, at best 5% of us, when Obama says, if you like what you have you can keep it, the most important statement is lacking: if you hate it, you can leave it. All the PO does is create another entitlement for people to resent.Single payer is actually an easier sale, as it answers that very human question: "What's in it for me?"
Le's fight for the real thing.
Please join me in demanding your Medicare ASAP, regardless of age:In FB: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=147637363022In MyBO: http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/gpk4ptRead Rep. Kucinich analysis below, and let's go after the real thing.The Private Mandate Sausage Machine
Tuesday, 15 September 2009
Dear Friends, It is said one should not ask how sausage or laws are made. Are you concerned about a public option? Let me share with you some insight about health care legislation which may not be good for your health.A lesson in politics. The Kucinich Prediction: Here's what's going to happen ...
House will make a big deal about keeping/putting a public option in HR3200 because it competes with insurance companies and will keep insurance rates low.
The White House will refer to the President's speech last week where he spoke favorably of the public option.
The Senate will kill the competitive public option in favor of non-competitive "co-ops". Senate leaders like Kent Conrad have said the votes to pass a public option were never there in the Senate.
The bill will come to a House-Senate Conference Committee without the public option.
House Democrats will be told to support the conference report on the legislation to support the President.
The bill will pass, not with a "public option" but with a private mandate requiring 30 million uninsured to buy private health insurance (if one doesn't already have it). If you are broke, you may get a subsidy. If you are not broke, you will get a fine if you do not purchase insurance.
This legislative sausage will be celebrated as a new breakthrough and will be packaged as health insurance reform. However, the bill may require a Surgeon General's warning label: Your Money or Your Life!The bill that Congress passes may pale in comparison to the bill that millions of Americans get every month for having or not having private health insurance. It will take four years for the new legislation to go into effect. During that time we are going to build a constituency of millions in support of real health care, a constituency which will be recognized and a cause which is right and just: Health Care as a Civil Right.
So I'm looking through my Gmail account and while reading emails for healthcare reform efforts in my area, Google ads picked out all the healthcare related words in the letter and delivered me a link to the latest RNC attack video on the public option. The tag for the video: "The Democrats are in disarray over healthcare. Sign-up below to help end the "public option" once and for all."
It should be clear to everybody now what the effect of the pre-emptive compromise on a single payer healthcare system was: the public option ceased to be a compromise position because once the debate had actually begun it was the farthest left position remaining on the table, while the right's position remained unchanged. We now have to fight for the public option as if it was the left's progressive position, rather than a compromise from it (which it really is). This happens all the time, every time we try to reach out and move to the center, the conservatives pull further to the right, and in doing so pull the compromise position further to the right. We're being made fools of out there. We have majorities in congress bigger than any Bush or Reagan ever had, yet we can't seem to get anything done, while those guys were able to execute their ruinous agendas with almost free abandon. Democrats, we need to reframe this debate, the public option is not a compromise, it is a bare minimum for real reform. Anything less is an empty gesture.
Tossing the sick out in the cold, bankrupting the "pre-existing," the private health insurers have acted with as great a sense of reckless abandon as the worst of the Wall Street bankers who crashed our financial system. Except they weren't just playing with people's money, they were playing with people's lives. After the way these companies have abused the American people, we can accept nothing less than a public option. I was forced to give my tax dollars to bailout reckless bankers, but I will not be forced into bailing out these insurance companies that have toyed with the lives of innocent Americans. And if I am mandated to buy coverage without the option of a public plan, that is exactly what I would be made to do. To achieve universal coverage Americans would need to buy (with our own money, or with tax dollars, aka debt, if we qualify for subsidies) almost 50 million new policies from the very same companies that have profited off the sick and off crashing our healthcare system. We don’t need more bailouts for big corporations – least of all those which have so mistreated the American people – we need universal healthcare with a public option. Personally, I won't buy anything else. I hereby boycott any and all private health insurance.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/The-Presidents-Remarks-and-a-Letter-from-Ted/
I just finished laying out my plan for health reform at a joint session of Congress. Now, I'm writing directly to you because what happens next is critical -- and I need your help.Change this big will not happen because I ask for it. It can only come when the nation demands it. Congress knows where I stand. Now they need to hear from you.Add your voice: Ask your representatives to support my plan for real health reform in 2009.The heart of my plan is simple: bring stability and security to Americans who already have health insurance, guarantee affordable coverage for those who don't, and rein in the cost of health care.Tonight, I offered a specific plan for how to make it happen. I incorporated the best ideas from Democrats and Republicans to create a plan that's bold, practical, and represents the broad consensus of the American people.We've come closer to real health reform in the last few months than we have in the last 60 years. But those who profit from the status quo -- and those who put partisan advantage above all else -- will fight us every inch of the way.We do not seek that fight, but we will not shrink from it. The stakes are too high to let scare tactics cloud the debate, or to allow partisan bickering to block the path. Your voice, right now, is essential.See my full plan and call on your representatives to support it.Ours is not the first generation to understand the dire need for health reform. And I am not the first president to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last.Thank you,President Barack Obama
I just finished laying out my plan for health reform at a joint session of Congress. Now, I'm writing directly to you because what happens next is critical -- and I need your help.Change this big will not happen because I ask for it. It can only come when the nation demands it. Congress knows where I stand. Now they need to hear from you.Add your voice: Ask your representatives to support my plan for real health reform in 2009.The heart of my plan is simple: bring stability and security to Americans who already have health insurance, guarantee affordable coverage for those who don't, and rein in the cost of health care.Tonight, I offered a specific plan for how to make it happen. I incorporated the best ideas from Democrats and Republicans to create a plan that's bold, practical, and represents the broad consensus of the American people.We've come closer to real health reform in the last few months than we have in the last 60 years. But those who profit from the status quo -- and those who put partisan advantage above all else -- will fight us every inch of the way.We do not seek that fight, but we will not shrink from it. The stakes are too high to let scare tactics cloud the debate, or to allow partisan bickering to block the path. Your voice, right now, is essential.See my full plan and call on your representatives to support it.
Ours is not the first generation to understand the dire need for health reform. And I am not the first president to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last.Thank you,President Barack Obama
On Wednesday night at 8:00 P.M. Eastern Time, President Obama will deliver a major address to spell out his vision for health insurance reform to a special joint session of Congress. As we head into the next phase of the debate, the President's address will be an important moment in our campaign for change.
The President's speech will be carried live on most major television networks, and you can watch online at BarackObama.com.
In addition, Organizing for America members will be gathering at local watch parties with friends, neighbors and fellow supporters across the country. Afterward, watch party attendees will be invited to join a special conversation with former Obama for America campaign manager David Plouffe to discuss how we can help make the President's vision a reality. Click here to find a watch party near you.
We Can Afford Reform, We Can’t Afford the Status Quo
Jared Bernstein, Chief Economist for the Vice President and Executive Director of the Middle Class Task Force, debunks the myth that we can’t afford health insurance reform. To the contrary, not only has the President demanded that reform not add to the deficit in the short term, but reform is the only way to get skyrocketing health care costs under control that will be devastating not for families , businesses, and for government deficits in the long term under the status quo.
Watch the Video
Earlier today, it was announced that President Obama will address a joint session of Congress on the issue of health insurance reform next Wednesday, September 9th. CNN reported:
It will be Obama's second speech to the full legislature since he took office in January, and the setting and rarity of such an event highlighted the importance the president places on his top domestic priority: overhauling the nation's ailing health care system.House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid formally invited Obama to make the address, as required, in a letter issued Wednesday after news broke of the planned speech.
We'll have more information on this important speech in the days to come.
www.whitehouse.gov
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/The-Vice-President-Asks-Your-Help-Tell-Us-Why-Reform-Matters-for-You/
This morning we released a new Reality Check video from Vice President Biden. The myth he takes on is, as one Member of Congress opposing reform put it, that "This is not a major issue among the American people." The Vice President asks for your help with this one – after you watch, upload a video in response through YouTube helping him bust the myth by telling us why reform is important to you.
