We may not have money to donate.
We may not have time to attend a rally
We may not have gas to go door to door
But we do have crayons, markers, construction paper and tape.
Our windows are sick ------Just like US
They need HR676 ---------Just like US
Let's give them a healthy dose of HR676!!! make a sign and put it in your window then sign in and let us know about it. Click "ATTENDING" this event
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=293263660251&index=1
Senator Obama promised us
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpAyan1fXCE
This is what it looks like to stand up for what's right
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=if5fgI-w-CY
WHAT IS SINGLE PAYER?http://fora.tv/2009/09/14/TR_Reid_The_Healing_of_Americahttp://www.grahamazon.com/sp/whatissinglepayer.phphttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAvy9jew9dMhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jng4TnKqy6A
IT'S NOT THE PUBLIC OPTION that's what!!!
The Public Option is a placebo
http://www.pnhp.org/news/2009/july/more_of_the_same_is_.php
The Public Option is our ENEMY
http://www.healthcare-now.org/bait-and-switch-how-the-%E2%80%9Cpublic-option%E2%80%9D-was-sold/
HOLD OUT for Single Payer
http://www.pnhp.org/news/2009/june/hold_out_for_single_.php
EVEN REPUBLICANS Know it's best
http://www.republicansforsinglepayer.org/?p=3
So let's be clear, I'm a progressive libertarian, I want single-payer healthcare (i.e. medicare for all), and I support a women's right to have an abortion. I do not, however, see anything wrong with Stupak's amendment, and it's certainly not worth weakening health care reform over.
First of all, if we're going to use government funds to provide for people's healthcare, which I believe we should (and I would personally prefer the government paid for all healthcare through a single-payer system), we have to be careful about how we allocate those funds so that it does not just turn into a rampant populism of who can snatch more government cash. For that reason, health care funds should only go to MEDICALLY NECESSARY procedures. Asking someone to give their tax dollars for elective abortions, from a fiscal perspective, doesn't make anymore sense than using tax dollars to pay for face lifts, or breast enlargement.
Secondly, many people in this country have a very understandable moral issue with abortion. If we believe in the right to make our own choice on this difficult moral question of when life begins, we need to respect the opinions of those who make a different decision than us. Pro-lifers have a right to their opinion too, and their opinion is that abortion is murder. Now they shouldn't have the right to force that conclusion on every other woman. But neither should they be required, in the name of health care reform, to fund an act they believe to be murder if it is not medically necessary to protect the life of the mother,
And really, in the grand scheme of medical costs, abortions are relatively cheap. Nobody is going bankrupt or losing their home over the cost of an abortion. And this is coming from someone who earns sub-poverty wages and has no health insurance.
Let's focus on things that matter here.
I'm looking for people who know the difference between the Public Option and Single Payer. Who are willing to stand behind HR676 Single Payer without compromise.
If you are one of those people please join us at http://canhi-hr676.ning.com/
We are calling ourselves the MAD AS HELL PATIENTS and we are staying closely in touch with their fan page at http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?topic=11385&post=67209&uid=124977986675#post67209
as much as we hate to be in several odd groups I have administrative control at http://canhi-hr676.ning.com/ This is where we can do our planning, post videos, petitions and keep in touch
If you are not sure about the difference, read some articles here: http://www.healthcare-now.org/comparing-single-payer-with-the-public-option/
and listen ONLY to Dennis Kucinich the ONLY person who has not taken money from the Drug companies or the Insurance companies for his campaigns:
http://radioornot.blogspot.com/2009/09/dennis-kucinich-health-care-for-all.html http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=if5fgI-w-CY
Are you ready to give up the Public Option yet? And come back home to Single Payer?
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.
"Politics of the possible"
Tuesday, September 1, my SO and I had a face to face meeting with our congresscritter, Rep. Zoe Lofgren.
I had emailed her office last week, asking to set up a meeting. They called me Monday, said she'd had cancellations, could I come the next afternoon for a ten minute meeting. Of course I said yes - I'm unemployed, and live a few blocks away, but even if I'd been working I would have taken time off.
Knowing full well that ten minutes just wouldn't be enough to cover all of the issues I was concerned with, I typed up a list - my own words, the real concerns I had.
At the top of that list was healthcare. Then came GLBT issues. Then economy and finance, and more.
We brought copies, one for us, one for Zoe, one for her aides.
Yes, she has to be diplomatic, she has to negotiate with the rest of the House. She declined to comment on my sentiment that Grassley and Baucus were a waste of space. I felt like she was trying not to chuckle.
But I also felt that she needed to hear from the little people - the working (or unemployed) person, the woman trying to start a small consulting business, the people paying the highest tax rates when working because they're gay, childfree renters without tax shelters.
If people like me are willing to fork over for singlepayer, or at least a strong public option, then the rest of the contry can give up a little for the assurance that they and their children will have healthcare regardless of their economic circumstance.
She agreed with me on the GLBT items, talked about trying to get some of the more strident religious folks to see how gay marriage really isn't a threat to their religious freedom.
She told me, she has to be diplomatic, but as an activist, I don't.
Activists and advocates don't need to put their positions in terms of compromise, and we shouldn't.
The right wing knows this, and is ready to fling shit.
We need to push, and hard. We need to let our congresspeople know what we need.
Believe me, Rep Lofgren will be seeing me again. I'll be keeping track, and there will be praise given or questions asked.
Your Reps work for you. Make the time to go see them. Write down your concerns, so they have stuff to take back to Washington with them.
