"Be not simply good, be good for something." -Thoreau
Contact your congress people and representatives!
Email, web sites info, and ground address for US Senators/Representatives can all be found here.
And here is NY Congressman Anthony Weiner's site, Countdown to HealthCare, where you can sign petitions, get up-to-the-minute informatin on what and how things are moving through congress. I am tempted to move to NY state, just to claim Weiner as my rep!
Don't you wonder how a Democratic President, elected on a platform of reform, with over whelming Democrat majorities in the House and the Senate can take a hugely popular social program and turn it into a corporate give away? This is about as good for us as Medicare part D (which essentially gave billions of dollars to the pharmaceutical companies!)
That's just what's happening with the "HealthCare for America" act recently introduced by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. the way it reads, right out of the box, the "public option" is described as "requir(ing) most individuals to obtain health insurance but do too little to make sure they can afford it. But beefing up insurance subsidies would drive up the cost of the bill, which not only would threaten Obama’s $900 billion spending cap but would unnerve centrist Democrats already worried that the bill does too little to constrain healthcare costs." (TheHill.com)
October's CBS NewPolls tell us Americans continue to overwhelmingly support a Robust Public Option - the question was:
DO YOU FAVOR A GOVERNMENT HEALTH INSURANCE PLAN LIKE MEDICARE
While fewer people answered "Favor" than back in June, still almost 2/3 of the people polled want a Public Option that covers everyone, no exceptions, equally. How simple is it to see that what we WANT, what we VOTED FOR in November, was to CHANGE the system that does not support "average Americans"?! If your Senators and Representatives are not helping to move this change forward, they are not listening to you and your neighbors. A Public Option will only work if EVERYONE is IN THE POOL. We must pester them into letting us ALL in.
"If the public option leads to a single-payer system, it'll be because private health insurance couldn't offer as good a product to consumers -- that government-run insurance turned out more affordable, of higher quality, and better overall. It'll be because consumers preferred government-run health insurance to private insurance. Isn't that their choice?" succinctly stated by Sahil Kapur in his blog post today.
Paul Krugman (Nobel prize winning Economist, and columnist for The New York Times) wrote an opinion piece supporting the recently unveiled House plan here. "For this is the moment of truth. The political environment is as favorable for reform as it’s likely to get. The legislation on the table isn’t perfect, but it’s as good as anyone could reasonably have expected. History is about to be made — and everyone has to decide which side they’re on."
P.S. check out this link if you want to know what some people think this is really an Insurance Company Bail Out bill.
Contact your congress people and representatives!
Email, web sites info, and ground address for US Senators/Representatives can all be found here.
And here is NY Congressman Anthony Weiner's site, Countdown to HealthCare, where you can sign petitions, get up-to-the-minute informatin on what and how things are moving through congress. I am tempted to move to NY state, just to claim Weiner as my rep!
Don't you wonder how a Democratic President, elected on a platform of reform, with over whelming Democrat majorities in the House and the Senate can take a hugely popular social program and turn it into a corporate give away? This is about as good for us as Medicare part D (which essentially gave billions of dollars to the pharmaceutical companies!)
That's just what's happening with the "HealthCare for America" act recently introduced by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. the way it reads, right out of the box, the "public option" is described as "requir(ing) most individuals to obtain health insurance but do too little to make sure they can afford it. But beefing up insurance subsidies would drive up the cost of the bill, which not only would threaten Obama’s $900 billion spending cap but would unnerve centrist Democrats already worried that the bill does too little to constrain healthcare costs." (TheHill.com)
"We think that it was eight times normal volume and it was certainly higher than the demand that we had when the first stimulus bill went up," he said. "It was probably the highest volume of traffic we've ever seen." -Jeff Ventura, White House spokesperson, on the flood of calls, email, and faxes to the White House in the 24 hours after the announcement about the bill was made. (see full story here)
October's CBS NewPolls tell us Americans continue to overwhelmingly support a Robust Public Option - the question was:
DO YOU FAVOR A GOVERNMENT HEALTH INSURANCE PLAN LIKE MEDICARE
| Now | 9/2009 | 8/2009 | 7/2009 | 6/2009 | |
| Favor | 62% | 65% | 60% | 66% | 72% |
| Oppose | 31% | 26% | 34% | 27% | 20% |
While fewer people answered "Favor" than back in June, still almost 2/3 of the people polled want a Public Option that covers everyone, no exceptions, equally. How simple is it to see that what we WANT, what we VOTED FOR in November, was to CHANGE the system that does not support "average Americans"?! If your Senators and Representatives are not helping to move this change forward, they are not listening to you and your neighbors. A Public Option will only work if EVERYONE is IN THE POOL. We must pester them into letting us ALL in.
"If the public option leads to a single-payer system, it'll be because private health insurance couldn't offer as good a product to consumers -- that government-run insurance turned out more affordable, of higher quality, and better overall. It'll be because consumers preferred government-run health insurance to private insurance. Isn't that their choice?" succinctly stated by Sahil Kapur in his blog post today.
Paul Krugman (Nobel prize winning Economist, and columnist for The New York Times) wrote an opinion piece supporting the recently unveiled House plan here. "For this is the moment of truth. The political environment is as favorable for reform as it’s likely to get. The legislation on the table isn’t perfect, but it’s as good as anyone could reasonably have expected. History is about to be made — and everyone has to decide which side they’re on."
P.S. check out this link if you want to know what some people think this is really an Insurance Company Bail Out bill.
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