There are 32 new members of congress. Right now every special interest and their mother is contacting them. They are invited to all sort of special briefings, conferences, and everything else starring lobbyists and right wing stink tanks. So, even though you just finished electing them, you need to contact them and remind them why you supported them. Ask them to join John Conyers and cosponsor HR 676, Medicare for All.

Since they don’t have their congressional websites up yet, we will make do with their campaign sites. Note, only contact your representatives.

New Members of Congress

Alabama Read more…

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: Read more…

A fix for health insurance

If, as Gunnett tells us, groups smaller than 100 are not a statistically believable pool, I suggest that we create a single pool for all Americans. How difficult would it be? Postal workers, the military and all federal government employees, as well as those over 65 and many others are already in the pool. It’s called “single payer.”

The time is now: Reform health care

One need only look to history to see that this is the time for such reform. In 1964, the Democrats won control, and the election of Lyndon Johnson was seen as an endorsement of a national health-insurance system.

Congress and Johnson created Medicare. In signing the bill into law, Johnson quoted his predecessor, President Harry Truman: "Millions do not now have protection or security against the economic effects of sickness. The time has arrived for action to help them attain that opportunity and that protection." Read more…

Ceci Connolly has an article entitled, U.S. 'Not Getting What We Pay For': Many Experts Say Health-Care System Inefficient, Wasteful, where she quotes, without irony, all the parasites of our health neglect system.

First a few words about Ceci Connolly; if you read The Daily Howler, you know that more than any other member of the celebrity press corps, she is responsible for smearing Al Gore and giving us Bush. An example of her notion of humor:
Smile-a-while (10/3/00) Read more…

Politics #2

President-Elect Barack Obama and former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle are working on helping this issue. They are looking at implementing the same system that Canada has, the Single Player system. Their health care is privately proveded and publicly funded.

No, Obama and Daschle are working on a plan that will impose some regulations on health insurance parasites, offer subsidies to poor people and leave our present health neglect system intact. John Conyers is pushing a Canadian style single payer system and Obama will sign it if it passes.

Caught by a Change in Health Care

She needs these machines and others because she has spinal muscular atrophy type 2, a disease that weakens muscles throughout her body. She also needs nursing care 12 hours a day.

Without the nurses, her parents, Philomena (aka Phil) and John Rogers, who is the chief information officer at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, would be in a very tough spot. The outside assistance, covered by their federal Aetna health insurance policy, means better care for Shelby and a more normal life for her parents and three sisters. Read more…

Texas Hill County

If we do not go Medicare for all, as seems likely,

Sez who?

How many times do I have to say this, Medicare for All has 93 Cosponsors, by far more support than any healthcare legislation. Why wouldn't it pass? It has more support in congress than any of the alternatives.

I don't like to beat up on my fellow bloggers, but I consider healthcare defeatists to be the largest single barrier to Medicare for All, even more so than AHIP or PhRma.

West Nyack: Meeting about single payer health care - "Medicare for All"

Date : 2 December 2008 From : 7:00pm
Category : Health / Care Location : 10994

Event Description :

A meeting about single payer health care ("Medicare for All")

From the organizers: "We're having a doctor and nurse discuss the need for the Single Payer Health Care system and how it can reduce the cost of health care."

Location:
Jewish Federation of Rockland County
450 W Nyack Rd
West Nyack, NY 10994
Map and directions:
maps.google.com...

Contact: Steve at the email address below. Read more…

Universal Single-Payer Health Back On

John Conyers has not given up! In fact, he has stepped up his efforts to pass a single payer universal health care bill. He writes today:

“I have exciting news to share with you– H.R. 676, my bill for universal, single-payer health care, has a new home on the web!

www.johnconyers.com/healthcare

Bailout America with Medicare for All

The biggest difference between US and foreign auto production is that only US automakers are saddled with the burden of paying the health care costs of current workers and retirees. Read more…

Yes: Government-financed, privately delivered care would work

While 30 cents of every dollar of health costs pays for overhead, Medicare costs 3 cents on the dollar. Today, rising health-care costs cause one-half of all personal bankruptcies, three-fourths of whom have insurance.

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. Read more…

Salon

Waxman needs to realize that healthcare, environmentalism and the labor movement are intertwined. He would do well to work for a single-payer plan that relieves the burden of healthcare costs on automakers.

Waxman is now chair of the committee that has jurisdiction over HR 676. If you live in Waxman's district, please contact him and ask him to cosponsor HR 676.

All these Democrats need to understand that without the UAW they would still be the minority party and John McCain would be president. Now is the time for them to show themselves to be worthy of all that UAW members have done for them.

Just got this note from our friends at Healthcare-NOW!:

Here is a list of four (4) timely actions you can complete in under 10 minutes to get the word out to elected officials about the need for single-payer national health care. We need to say loud and clear that single-payer national health care is the the ultimate bail out plan. Single-Payer national health care has been expected to save up to $350 billion dollars because it will surgically remove the profiteering of the private health insurance industry.

It is estimated that 95% of all Americans will pay less for their healthcare than they are currently paying. Savings under HR 676 will be delivered directly to the people along with access to quality, comprehensive health care. Read more…

Hospitals X-Ray Patient Credit Scores

More and more are buying credit data to see if the sick can afford treatment

Letter to the Baltimore Sun

The Massachusetts health care plan, which was supposed to create universal coverage, has left hundreds of thousands of people uninsured because the premiums and out-of-pocket expenses are too costly for many to afford.

Have you written a letter to the editor?

Actually, we do have a system good enough for other countries to copy. It's called Medicare. Why not Medicare for all?

Sudden health-care changes unlikely

First of all, notice what is missing from this article, the words, HR 676, 93 cosponsors and saves $350 BILLION dollars a year. Every advocate for single payer needs to get those concepts across in every interview. This isn't some pie-in-the-sky idea, this is a specific piece of legislation that has more cosponsors than any other.

Congressman Wally Herger, R-Chico, said in a phone interview from Washington that single payer has gotten lots of discussion in the House but that no plan has materialized.  Read more…

Supporters of ‘Medicare for All’ Prepare for Health Care Showdown

Union advocates of “Medicare for all” are organizing to make labor a united voice on health care reform—and to pressure Democrats to do the right thing.

Discussed in conference calls for months and officially launched in mid-November, the Labor Campaign for Single-Payer Healthcare aims to mobilize a grassroots movement of union members that politicians (and union leaders) cannot ignore.

Organizers plan a January 10 founding conference in St. Louis to bring together supporters, especially those who can put the weight of their locals, central labor councils, and state federations behind the project. Read more…

(Following up on this post and this one in the series)

The second of my chosen areas of emphasis is getting Single Payer Health Care more into the public awareness and mainstream thinking, and, of course, ultimately to get HR 676 or something very like it passed into law in this country.

DCBlogger and hipparchia have done an excellent job keeping us up-to-date on the issue, so I won't even attempt to duplicate their efforts here: just follow the relevant tags.

I will report on the Healthcare-Now! Rally for HR 676 which took place last Thursday in Times Square. and some of my thoughts coming out of that rally. And, of course, photos! (Not very many this time because my batteries ran out.) Read more…

THIS SUNDAY at 5 PM Katie Robbins of HealthCare Now! will be live blogging at CorrenteWire to answer all your questions about the current battle for single payer. She has many interesting announcements to make, so save up all your questions. For those you of not familiar with HealthCare-Now!:

The Single-Payer Legislative Battle Begins! Read more…

MAJOR NEWS! I just got off the phone with Katie Robbins of HealthCare-Now!. She has graciously agreed to do a live blog here at CorrenteWire in the very near future. We are still working out the details and will post as soon as everything is arranged.

Things are moving very fast, and she has a lot of great news to announce. They are in the process of organizing events. There are weekly strategy sessions that she will be describing to you. Please think of any questions you have about the fight for single payer and be ready.

More when all the details are worked out.

Black Agenda Report

Should the auto industry get a Wall Street style blank check bailout? Or is this the ideal time to make US auto and other industrial jobs globally competitive by enacting the kind of single payer health care system every other wealthy industrial nation on the planet uses?

As I have said before, it is not a coincidence that the chief sponsor of single payer represents Detroit.

Received this note from Healthcare Now!:

Dear Healthcare-NOW! Supporter,

On November 19th, 2008, at 10 a.m., the Senate Finance Committee will hold a host a hearing in 215 Dirksen Senate Office Building, in Washington, D.C., titled: “Health Care Reform: An Economic Perspective.”

As of this time, only two U.S. Senators, Max Baucus of Montana and Charles Grassley of Iowa, are slated to offer statements, and only four other individuals are being offered as witnesses. There is no citizen or patient voice in this discussion of economic perspectives, and there is no nurse, doctor or other health care provider or professional voice in this discussion – no balance of perspectives from which our Senate can make informed choices. Read more…