Meet UnitedHealth CEO Stephen Hemsley, Opponent of Reform

Last Thursday, fifty protesters, holding umbrellas and candles, stood outside Helmsley's mansion, in the rain, and screened a video that contrasted his exhorbitant income and lifestyle, and UnitedHealth's huge profits, with the millions of Americans who go without insurance or bankrupt themselves with medical bills.

Invitation to Local Health Care Providers

Please Help Educate Us!

Yes We Can Tippecanoe, a local political action and service organization, is soliciting 150-250 word statements from local health care professionals to be read at our upcoming

Health Care Educational Forum,

June 28th, 3-5pm at the Tippecanoe County Public Library in downtown Lafayette.

We hope to hear from a variety of medical specialties and perspectives.

Our question to you is: From the point of view of your area of expertise and practice, what are the most significant concerns you face in providing service? What would you like to see in health care reform?

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Can't come to Washington DC on June 25? Could you visit the district office of your Senator or Representative?

If you can't take time off from work, see if you can get a lunch time appointment, assuming your office is near your representative's office. Ask them to support single payer. In person visits are the gold standard of citizen action.

On June 25th, 2009, thousands of grassroots people will descend on Washington, DC to lobby every Member of Congress in support of quality, affordable health care for all. We will also have a rally at 11:30 in Upper Senate Park and following there will be lobby activities in various locations.

Even though this is an HCAN event, single payer activists should support it.

The AFL-CIO and HCAN't have put out a survey. Please take this at at number 16 say that you would abolish private health insurance and replace it with a HR 676 Medicare for All.

Brown speaking to a HCAN't rally

In contrast, U.S. Sen. Brown told the admittedly sympathetic crowd gathered Friday morning that he has always supported a single-payer system but that wasn't likely to happen during this Congress. So, he said, he's campaigning for the next best thing: The mix between private and public health coverage.

"The plan we write will deal with the uninsured and underinsured," Brown said.

...at Change.org ---

All this week, this site hosted a blog debate about what approach we should take on health care reform in 2009. Dr. Don McCanne, a retired family physician now serving as Senior Health Policy Fellow for Physicians for a National Health Program, represented the "single-payer" point of view and Jason Rosenbaum, a writer and activist, and the Deputy Director of Online Campaigns for Health Care for America Now!, represented the "public competitor" point of view.

Health Care Overhaul Still in ‘Happy Talk’ Stage

The latest email from HCAN't:

Watch the strategy briefing from our National Campaign Director Richard Kirsch on how we will win quality, affordable health care for all in 2009 and how you can help.

They also have a nice tool that maps a bill's path to passage. I strongly recommend that we co-opt HCAN't as much as possible. Always be courteous in all your direct dealings with them.

Sign up for their updates, use Single as your first name, Payer as your last name and HR 676 Medicare for All as your address. If enough people keep doing that it will have its affect.

Email from Healthcare for America Now

The Obama transition team is encouraging activists like you to hold health care community discussions between December 15th and December 31st. Can you host a discussion and give President-elect Obama and Senator Tom Daschle your input? We'll try and get Members of Congress that support our efforts to attend!

Fill out the form below to let us know you'll host a discussion. Then we'll redirect you to change.gov to sign up with the Obama transition team.

If any reader would be willing to host a party for single payer it would be fabulous. We can use HCAN's and Obama's tools to mobilize support for HR 676.

Chris Frates of Politico writes another let's you and him fight article, but at least single payer advocates get to speak for themselves.

“These guys have unions as part of their coalition, but apparently they don’t understand collective bargaining. If you don’t ask for something, you’ll never get it,” said Chuck Idelson, spokesman for the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, the nation’s largest nurses union.

The nurses union believes that by not pushing for a single-payer system, HCAN and its allies are setting Americans up for failure.

Check out this quote by Richard Kirsch, national campaign manager for Health Care for America Now:

Politico has a whole column devoted to promoted division within the Democratic caucus, here is the health care portion

Where to start with the Democratic infighting on health care?

They’ve got problems from the left, caution from deficit hawks in the center and potential turf issues in the Senate.

The group Health Care for America Now, which advocates affordable health care for all, achieved its main success in winning support from fiscally conservative Democrats such as Warner during the campaign season, pushing Democratic candidates to back a health care plan that is universal but not
mandatory.

But the biggest fault lines on health care come from the left in this Democratic fight.

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Spam from well-funded Villagers in my Inbox; play it, Levanna:

URGENT: Send the insurance industry a message!

Er, no. I don't see any point in sending them a message; with their business model of denying care, they must already know we hate them. And sending the insurance companies a message diverts me from sending the real message I need to send to my elected representatives: Pass HR 676, save $350 billion a year, and save 17,000 lives.

And now the main body of the peice; watch for the sudden change of key in the middle:

Today, the leading insurance industry representative, America's Health Insurance Plans, came out and said they would stop denying people coverage due to pre-existing conditions.[1]*

HR 676 NOW NOW NOW!
Regards.
hipparchia, rabid pseudonymous blogger

Massa joins Obama’s health-care coalition

Democrat Eric Massa, the apparent winner to represent the 29th Congressional District, joined other newly-elected congressmembers Friday in promoting Health Care for America Now. The national grassroots campaign is focused on guaranteeing quality, affordable health care for every American in 2009.

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Jeffrey Muckensturm

H.R. 676 has significant labor support. To date, over 445 labor organizations, including 36 state AFL-CIO chapters, 110 Central Labor Councils, the United Steel Workers, the United Auto Workers, and at least 14 AFSCME and SEIU locals have passed resolutions supporting the bill. Interestingly, both SEIU and AFSCME have passed resolutions supporting H.R. 676 at national conventions, showing that there is strong rank-and-file support for single-payer.

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Protesters greet health-insurance executives at roundtable in Providence

One of the participants, Karen Malcolm, executive director of Ocean State Action –– continuing the argument from the street –– said the “elephant in the room” was the administrative costs and high salaries at health-insurance companies. She noted that government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid operate with very low overhead.

As dday notes, John Conyers has signed on to HCAN's Statement of Common Purpose, along with 31 other members of Congress.

Conyers's statement:

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Update: the discussion took place here.

If you're interested --

In addition to house parties around the country [for viewing the documentary Diagnosis:NOW!], Firedoglake will be hosting a virtual house party on September 14th at 7pm EST, with special guests Jim Gilliam, who's moving story is featured in the documentary, Roger Hickey, co-director of the Campaign for America's Future, and California Representative and health care champion Pete Stark!

What point of view was written out of this story?

Health care lobbying as strong as ever

While it has lacked the white-hot intensity of last year’s battle over children’s health care, this summer’s lobbying by health care interests has been just as omnipresent.

Giants such as AARP, the insurance industry, Health Care for America Now and the American Medical Association used the August congressional recess to blanket the country in a similar, if not coordinated, message: The country needs health care reform.

Be one of the first to see the Brave New Films Documentary - Diagnosis: NOW!

On September 14, 2008 we will be releasing a new documentary called “Diagnosis: Now!” produced by Robert Greenwald at Brave New Films. Do you feel secure with your private health insurance? Many people don’t, watch the film to see why.

Even though this is an HCAN't action, I encourage members of the Mighty Corrente Building to participate. It is important that advocates of single payer make their voices heard, in a courteous manner consistent with building a winning coaliton, at their events.

John Geyman has an excellent post examining all the front groups opposing Medicare for All. Highly recommended.

[GAC, part 0]

I read this stuff so you don't have to, but you can dive into the 82-page PDF too if you like. Or here's the earlier version, it's only 39 pages.

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In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree :
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.

On waking from an opium-induced sleep, so the story goes, Coleridge hurried to capture on paper the fantastical world he had dreamed [or hallucinated, depending on who you ask]. He was rudely interrupted while at this task, and when he returned to it, all was gone but the fragment we have today.

August 21, Saratoga Springs: Health care rally for Capital District

Date : 21 August 2008 From : 11:00am To : 12:00pm
Category : Health / Care Location : 12866

Event Description :

A new coalition of groups called Health Care for America Now! (HCAN) is holding a rally outside the Saratoga Springs Hospital.

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