[Welcome, FDL readers! -- lambert]
The Challenge: get 15 Blue Dogs to vote Yes on HR 676.
Now to start showing up at Blue Dogs' Town Halls, wearing T-shirts that say Vote YES on HR 676, if you have to. If you get the chance to ask a question, and you should try very hard to get that chance, ask: Will you vote YES on HR 676?
It would be terrific to get the Blue Dogs on record as saying yes, they will vote for it, but primarily your asking about it out loud, in a calm and adult manner, will give other people the courage to start asking about it too, even if not right away.
Take a video camera with you if you have one, and if they'll let you into the meeting with it, and try to get the question and the answer on video if you can. It's okay if you can't, the immediate point is to get the thoughts YES and HR 676 into not only the Blue Dogs' heads, but the heads of their constituents too.
Using FDL's Town Halls widget and the list of Blue Dogs from their site, I've so far found three Town Halls being held by Blue Dogs. If one of these is your representative and you can make it to the meeting, go.
While you're there, take the opportunity to talk about Medicare for All with the people around you. You don't have to get all confrontational, or feel like you should be wonky and know all the talking points, just pleasantly raise the possibility of everybody and their grandmother being able to have Medicare, and that HR 676 will do this.
If you'd like to go more prepared to talk about HR 676, and to have handouts to give people, here are 2 from PNHP: a 1-page fact sheet [nice to use for handouts] and a 5-page description of HR 676 [nice to have a copy for referring to if you're asked more detailed questions].
NB: Since it appears from the description in the widget that Adam Schiff supports the public option, assume for now that he can also be swayed to support single payer. In fact, it's not a bad mindset for this exercise to assume that they all want to do what's best for their constituents.
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Tuesday, 8-11-09, 7pm
Adam Schiff, Alhambra, CA
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Wednesday, 8-12-09, 6pm
Joe Donnelly, Kokomo, IN
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Saturday, 8-15-09, 10am
David Scott, Jonesboro, GA
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If you should discover other health care meetings held by Blue Dogs, by all means go and ask them to vote for HR 676.
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A boon, health care mavens: Please call Weiner's office and push
for his using the Medicare for All language. I meant to call today, but got busy. When I called earlier, everything was in flux: What exactly it would be (I reminded the telephone person Weiner had said it would be HR676...), how titled and referred to, when the actual bill would be printed, etc.
I think we need to try to ensure the language is, as Ian points, a hell of a lot more difficult to attack. And keep wording which has some public recognition.
Rep. Anthony Weiner -- DC office: 202 225-6616
Some toll free numbers which may still be working:
yabbut
for purposes of this exercise, we want the blue dogs to vote yes on a particular bill, hr 676, and it would be cool to have their constituents asking the blue dogs to vote yes on a particular bill by number.
but yeah, in just explaining the concept in normal ordinary everyday conversation, i prefer medicare for all too.
Just spoke to Weiner's office--No bill #, no name--person who
answered phone said Medicare for All is another program, extending Medicare to anyone who wants it while allowing private insurance. That Weiner is only for single payer, doing away with private insurance. Like that's going to go over! That's beyond what the Brits do!
I told her I'd heard Rep. Weiner on WNYC sayng private insurance upgrade plans would be allowed, other add-ons.
She said no decisions made--just WAIT and KEEP CHECKING.
I said we're trying to help build support--how can we do it without even name and number? She said refer to Rep. Weiner's single payer plan.
I suggested that Medicare for All...with a robust private OPTION would overcome some immediate resistance to single payer, that both Obama and the Repubs have come out against single payer, and we need to sidestep that obstacle.
I said we're running out of time.
Please, please, please call, oh you health care mavens. You know this topic inside out and sideways. Dazzle them with logic and precision. Bestir them to action and good tactical naming. Yes, HR676 is the known number.
I getting worried this is some kind of front to take real single payer supporters out of the game. How real is Weiner about this?
Anyone in his district--please call.
Call Conyers as well? 202 225-5126
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OMG--Obama at his appearance today saying we have to fix the system bcz too often it works better for the insurance companies than it does for the insured folks.
Ol' rope-a-dope, eh? Attack the parasites while working to get them better fed? Bamboozlin' Obama?
Language is a problem
Yes, people have used "Medicare for all" to refer to expanding Medicare coverage to other age groups (or otherwise); and "single-payer" has been used, bizarrely, to refer to public option plans (by people who really ought to know better). I do think the Medicare For All name is good in that it taps into the fact that people already know and like (for the most part) Medicare; on the other hand, and we haven't mentioned this here, it gives an avenue of attack to people who portray Medicare as a "troubled" program which is running out of money. (How many hands am I up to now?)
I'll try to call when I get to a phone. Not in Weiner's district, but I do live in NYC. (Isn't he from Queens?)
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We can't afford not to have single-payer!
Just spoke to Conyers' office--aide said Weiner is working off
old bill by Dingle, not HR676. Weiner is worried about Conyers' bill covering everyone on US soil (which is the way it should be) and the scoring. They feel Dingle's bill will score more easily.
This aide has Fed employees' insurance -- co-pays of from $400 to over $1000 for his last four uses of the insurance plan!!!! He would go to Medicare for All in a heartbeat--as would most of thCongressional aides, who do not earn all that much.
He apparently works the health care issue for Conyers--but he was called away and I didn't get his name.
So...Add Dingle to people to call!
DC Office: 202 225-4071
Maybe we can track down what's going on with Weiner's bill....
The 866 toll free number is still live.
Corrected: The first two entries for Dingle's telephone number at google had his name spelled Dingell--I thought it was spelled Dingle, but google asked the Did you mean Dingell. I figured I was wrong.
No, Google was wrong -- but that's bcz some other sites getting lots of hits have the spelling wrong. So, Google should be double checked....
it's dingell
i try to remember to look up their names on their official .gov sites.
google, being based on statistics, tends to direct you to whatever spelling gets used the most, not always what spelling is the most correct.
bamboozling us?
it's always possible.
otoh, we have a chance to get a floor vote on single payer. this will be the first time in a long time [the first time ever?] that single payer has been moved out of committee and onto the floor for a real live vote. THIS little detail IS BIG. we can take it and run with it, even if our leashes turn out to be shorter than we hoped they were.
Also to support single payer in the states
As a backup plan.
"Will you support an amending HR3200 to allow states or groups of states the right to adopt their own single payer systems??
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Yes, this is very important -- and the BIP* are NOT forgetting
to work hard to keep it out.
*BIP--Big Insurance Parasites
Nice to see one of the big dogs
in the Blogosphere come up with an action that will likely do more for whatever reform results than anything that has been happening before. Kudos to Jane!
What'll draw the people already on Medicare
is that HR 676 includes long term care. Remember, HR676 isn't just Medicare for All; it's improved and expanded Medicare.
The non-elite Republicans believe that "if you run out of money, the government will take care of you." The thinking appears to be, "The government takes away my hard-earned money with all those taxes, and gives it to poor people. If I end up without any money, the government will start giving me lots of money the way they do those people." There's a strange emotional ambivalence there. Victimization is joined to reassurance.
However, the thing they fear is the cost of long term care. When you go into a nursing home, the government comes and takes away your house. At least, that's the way they see the requirement that you spend down your assets prior to being eligible for Medicaid to pay nursing home costs. Most of them don't get into the asset-sheltering schemes that the professional classes use to swarm into the program for the poor.
I have found instant interest whenever I mention that HR676 covers nursing home costs.
HR 676 covers a lot more than Medicare
Dental coverage, for example. Perhaps we should call it "Expanded Medicare For All"?
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We can't afford not to have single-payer!
Conyers calles it expanded Medicare for All -- but I didnt write
down the exact title when I called his office today.
Maine desperately needs dental coverage
Get the Maine girls on board!
(And I get WVA does too...)
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
hr 676: expanded and improved medicare for all act
All the more reason to try to get Weiner back on board with 676
But, obviously, I don't have the whole picture--just the WAIT and CHECK BACK advice and what Conyers' aide told me.
And from Weiner's person no seeming desire to see people work in support of his bill.
Re: Scoring -- Don't ever forget Obama is demanding any health care for the unisured be budget neutral. Either tax increases (most logical, especially if it meant relief for individuals and businesses through single payer) or CUTS.
Obama has already said he will make cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. I'm worried about that, and I'm not even ON Medicare--just 18 months to go.
What do you think people on Medicare think Obama means to do? Would you be worried?
But, Obama wants people to have skin in the game, and that's probably where the cuts will be.
Must keep the pararsites well fed and producing donations....
People on Medicare *are* worried
What's been talked about (sorry for no links and for lack of agency in that!) is cutting "excess" spending, such as unnecessary and redundant testing, etc. There surely is some of that, due to the way Medicare pays, but figuring out what and where is not going to be an easy task. There will also be the need to explain to people why more testing is not always a good thing.
But also, once the foot's in the door to cut Medicare costs in order to pay for other stuff, that just plays into the hands of people who think that old people just plain cost society too much - and the attendant fear on the part of people who are old (or who realize that, golly, they too could be old some day!).
Obama and his spokespeople have been, shall we say, less than reassuring on this point. See, for instance, his answers in the Town Halls. He jokes around about it. I do not think he gets how much people are afraid. He could be much more forceful about protecting and improving medical coverage under Medicare. (This could be done while cutting costs to a certain extent.)
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We can't afford not to have single-payer!
And the public option advocates...
... who emphasize how old the teabaggers are don't help (sorry, no link).
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
The ages of the disruptors has surprised me -- lots of gray hair
Conan last night had a skit about health care debate disruptors--the actors were almost all definitely seniors with gray hair. (The actual joke was lame.)
But the message gets out there....
See, all things work together for good
1. Only crazy old people are against Obama's health reform.
That's going to morph right into:
2. Only crazy old people are against Obama's "entitlement reform."
Just watch.
While both parties laugh all the way to the bank.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
seniors and housewives and unemployed
they get recruited for stuff like this because the rest of us have to be at work.
yep
he's mentioned cutting subsidies to private insurers for medicare part c, and i think he's mentioned the donut hole in part d, but he's been very vague on where else he plans to cut the excess out of medicare spending.
from reading the bill, it looks like maybe the dems expect the 'accountable care organizations' to save some of that money eventually, which possibly they are right to worry about, since that phrase appears to be newspeak for 'managed care'.
and while he has repeatedly said that no benefits would be cut, in his telling and retelling of the story of his grandmother's hip replacement surgery, while emphasizes that of course he'd want her to have the surgery if that's what she wanted, he comes across as thinking it might not have been wise spending on the part of medicare. that would scare me if i were old and frail, what else might he not want medicare to take a chance on spending on me?
that's a good point
i haven't been using that one, but it's definitely a huge worry for a lot of people. so many of my friends have parents who have ended up 'in the poorhouse' just qualify for medicaid for long-term care. unless you're truly well off, both the care and the insurance that's supposed to provide for it are almost unaffordable.
Has a design for Medicare for All...with a Robust Private Option
been decided on?
How can transfers be made?
I'd love to have:
Medicare for All...the bailout for the rest of us!
Yes...
I'll try to put it up tonight or tomorrow -- RL calls...
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
lambert: I can make my designs available
at full size, so people could print them off on their own if they wanted to do so.
I haven't done this because I did not know what you were intending to do here. (Waiting to hear.)
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We can't afford not to have single-payer!
good discussion. thanks, all.
i'll be back later tonight
Has something changed for Jane? I hadn't been to FDL for a bit,
go over this evening and find this.
OFA is MIA...Leaving True Health Care Reform Nearly DOA
i saw that
i don't know if she was part of ofa or not. i hadn't seen her mention it before.
What does it mean when one reads
"Hamsher's" Challenge as Hamster's Challenge? And having done it once, now can't stop.
Too much Tuesday?
confession:
after i posted the first one, that's how i read it too, when i went back later and reread it. i considered changing it, but now having started the series, have decided to keep for the time being.
maybe it'll subtly remind people to kick in a $ or so for the hamster kibble if they can.
So true
There's no challenge here, as our hosts make more than clear. Jane doesn't give a shit what SP advocates have to say.
We could run on the wheel for a while with no actual outcome.
no actual outcome is the most likely outcome here
not a good enough reason to not try something [at least not for me].
Can you clarify "our hosts"
in the context of this statement?
"There's no challenge here, as our hosts make more than clear."
FDL, Corrente?
hi, fdl!
thanks!