Joint Effort

Crawford to Sebelius – Why is Single Payer Off the Table?

Dr. Jewel Crawford believes passionately in single payer health insurance.So much so that, Dr. Crawford traveled to the Fox News studios in Washington, D.C. to confront Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius.

Dr. Crawford teaches at the Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta.

Dr. Crawford was accompanied at the Fox News studio by journalist Sam Husseini of Washington Stakeout.

Keep the Preasure On  – ASAP – Call, write, fax or e-mail all your representatives and tell them they must support Single Payer  HR676.    LINK

Now Call or Fax  Senator Max Baucus and tell him that SINGLE PAYER is indeed on the table &  let him know how much you “don’t respect” his performance!   And, remind him that he is representing the country, NOT  the health insurance & pharma industry in Healthcare Reform!  Phone: (202) 224-2651 (Office)   //  (202) 224-9412 (Fax)

And one more- Call President Obama at the White House (202-456-1414 or  202- 456-1111) and tell him what a mess Senator Max Baucus is making, arresting Doctors and Nurses, etc …  then remind him he said, “everyone would have a seat at the table”, tell him Single Payer is not for later, the time is NOW! 

Visit the Healthcare-Now ,  the Physicians for a National Health Program  and Health-Justice web sites to learn more!

~ If you know anyone who needs help with MRSA – real help is available! ~

The Health Care Industry vs. Health Reform

June 25, 2009 by Healthcare-NOW! 
By: Wendell Potter for prwatch.org//Wendell Potter is the Senior Fellow on Health Care for the Center for Media and Democracy in Madison, Wisconsin.

I’m the former insurance industry insider now speaking out about how big for-profit insurers have hijacked our health care system and turned it into a giant ATM for Wall Street investors, and how the industry is using its massive wealth and influence to determine what is (and is not) included in the health care reform legislation members of Congress are now writing.

Although by most measures I had a great career in the insurance industry (four years at Humana and nearly 15 at CIGNA), in recent years I had grown increasingly uncomfortable serving as one of the industry’s top PR executives. In addition to my responsibilities at CIGNA, which included serving as the company’s chief spokesman to the media on all corporate and financial matters, I also served on a lot of trade association committees and industry-financed coalitions, many of which were essentially front groups for insurers. So I was in a unique position to see not only how Wall Street analysts and investors influence decisions insurance company executives make but also how the industry has carried out behind-the-scenes PR and lobbying campaigns to kill or weaken any health care reform efforts that threatened insurers’ profitability.

I also have seen how the industry’s practices — especially those of the for-profit insurers that are under constant pressure from Wall Street to meet their profit expectations — have contributed to the tragedy of nearly 50 million people being uninsured as well as to the growing number of Americans who, because insurers now require them to pay thousands of dollars out of their own pockets before their coverage kicks in — are underinsured. An estimated 25 million of us now fall into that category.

What I saw happening over the past few years was a steady movement away from the concept of insurance and toward “individual responsibility,” a term used a lot by insurers and their ideological allies. This is playing out as a continuous shifting of the financial burden of health care costs away from insurers and employers and onto the backs of individuals. As a result, more and more sick people are not going to the doctor or picking up their prescriptions because of costs. If they are unfortunate enough to become seriously ill or injured, many people enrolled in these plans find themselves on the hook for such high medical bills that they are losing their homes to foreclosure or being forced into bankruptcy.

As an industry spokesman, I was expected to put a positive spin on this trend that the industry created and euphemistically refers to as “consumerism” and to promote so-called “consumer-driven” health plans. I ultimately reached the point of feeling like a huckster.

I thought I could live with being a well-paid huckster and hang in there a few more years until I could retire. I probably would have if I hadn’t made a completely spur-of-the-moment decision a couple of years ago that changed the direction of my life.   (Read the rest of the story…)

Read more on Wendell Potter – (Link)

Keep the Preasure On  – ASAP – Call, write, fax or e-mail all your representatives and tell them they must support Single Payer  HR676.    LINK

Now Call or Fax  Senator Max Baucus and tell him that SINGLE PAYER is indeed on the table &  let him know how much you “don’t respect” his performance!   And, remind him that he is representing the country, NOT  the health insurance & pharma industry in Healthcare Reform!  Phone: (202) 224-2651 (Office)   //  (202) 224-9412 (Fax)

And one more- Call President Obama at the White House (202-456-1414 or  202- 456-1111) and tell him what a mess Senator Max Baucus is making, arresting Doctors and Nurses, etc …  then remind him he said, “everyone would have a seat at the table”, tell him Single Payer is not for later, the time is NOW! 

Visit the Healthcare-Now ,  the Physicians for a National Health Program  and Health-Justice web sites to learn more!

~ If you know anyone who needs help with MRSA – real help is available! ~

Are you FURIOUS yet?

An article and NPR report describing the hearings where insurance CEO’s absolutely refused to give up their companies’ “right” to retroactively terminate a health insurance policy when someone gets a serious illness.  (LINK)  

An LA Times story on the same hearings is here.  (LINK)

Not FURIOUS yet?

A study from the government showing this startling new news:  We are paying lots more for health insurance than we should be!!!!  And the price is going up really, really fast!!!! Wow!!   (LINK)

The recent rapid rise in health care stock prices have investors celebrating the presumptive failure of any meaningful health care reform.  Are you going to let that happen??? 

Keep the Preasure On  – ASAP – Call, write, fax or e-mail all your representatives and tell them they must support Single Payer  HR676.    LINK

Now Call or Fax  Senator Max Baucus and tell him that SINGLE PAYER is indeed on the table &  let him know how much you “don’t respect” his performance!   And, remind him that he is representing the country, NOT  the health insurance & pharma industry in Healthcare Reform!  Phone: (202) 224-2651 (Office)   //  (202) 224-9412 (Fax)

And one more- Call President Obama at the White House (202-456-1414 or  202- 456-1111) and tell him what a mess Senator Max Baucus is making, arresting Doctors and Nurses, etc …  then remind him he said, “everyone would have a seat at the table”, tell him Single Payer is not for later, the time is NOW! 

Visit the Healthcare-Now ,  the Physicians for a National Health Program  and Health-Justice web sites to learn more!

~ If you know anyone who needs help with MRSA – real help is available! ~

A single payer rep finally testifies to Congress; insurance industry steps up attack on any public plan

June 21 – “Our decades’ reliance on the market and efforts to patch together a system to use a public and private mix has failed to carry a quality health care to all Americans. The market is the wrong model. Health care is not a commodity, it’s a human right,” Dr. Margaret Flowers spoke at Senator Kennedy’s health committee hearing.

Flowers was one of the thirteen single-payer advocates arrested at the Baucus Finance Hearing in May.She is a pediatrician in the Baltimore area and a co-chair of the Maryland chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP).

She told TRNN that President Barack Obama’s public insurance plan would still not solve the problem of inaccessible health care in the United States. “It doesn’t solve the fundamental problem that we have in this country, dealing with so many different insurers. It just adds one more insurance to the mix. It’s going to be expensive. The connector, the exchange that they want to create will add costs, their efforts to regulate private insurers is going to add costs, health care providers are still going to have to deal with a whole maze of plans, and patients are still going to have to deal with that.”

“I think that whole idea of being bipartisan from the beginning was a mistake. I mean, we have the opportunity right now, we have a Democratic president, we have a Democratic Congress. We should be able to craft legislation that serves our people,” Flower said.

Starting on May 30th and rallies have broken out across the United States in favor of a single payer healthcare system. HealthCare Now has worked with The Real News by providing citizen clips of events that took place across the United States.

One of the citizen clips was submitted from Austin Texas where Fernando Losada of the CNA/NNOC informs us of the new civil healthcare movement. “We are on the verge of something historical in our country, we are uniting all of the nurses unions; within months we will be 150,000 people strong. ”

Dr. Flowers ends the interview by encouraging people to “treat it like a civil rights movement; we need more people out rallying for single payer Healthcare.”

By Healthcare-Now & The Real News

Keep the Preasure On  – ASAP – Call, write, fax or e-mail all your representatives and tell them they must support Single Payer  HR676.    LINK

Now Call or Fax  Senator Max Baucus and tell him that SINGLE PAYER is indeed on the table &  let him know how much you “don’t respect” his performance!   And, remind him that he is representing the country, NOT  the health insurance & pharma industry in Healthcare Reform!  Phone: (202) 224-2651 (Office)   //  (202) 224-9412 (Fax)

And one more- Call President Obama at the White House (202-456-1414 or  202- 456-1111) and tell him what a mess Senator Max Baucus is making, arresting Doctors and Nurses, etc …  then remind him he said, “everyone would have a seat at the table”, tell him Single Payer is not for later, the time is NOW! 

Visit the Healthcare-Now ,  the Physicians for a National Health Program  and Health-Justice web sites to learn more!

~ If you know anyone who needs help with MRSA – real help is available! ~

Do you really need to ask why any longer?  If you want to know why – click  on the below!

Keep the Preasure On  – ASAP – Call, write, fax or e-mail all your representatives and tell them they must support Single Payer  HR676.    LINK

Now Call or Fax  Senator Max Baucus and tell him that SINGLE PAYER is indeed on the table &  let him know how much you “don’t respect” his performance!   And, remind him that he is representing the country, NOT  the health insurance & pharma industry in Healthcare Reform!  Phone: (202) 224-2651 (Office)   //  (202) 224-9412 (Fax)

And one more- Call President Obama at the White House (202-456-1414 or  202- 456-1111) and tell him what a mess Senator Max Baucus is making, arresting Doctors and Nurses, etc …  then remind him he said, “everyone would have a seat at the table”, tell him Single Payer is not for later, the time is NOW! 

Visit the Healthcare-Now ,  the Physicians for a National Health Program  and Health-Justice web sites to learn more!

~ If you know anyone who needs help with MRSA – real help is available! ~

Father’s – Take a break from your norm and allow yourself to Enjoy the Day ! 

Something out the norm – Enjoy & share if you like…

More than 200 dancers were performing their version of “Do Re Mi”, in the Central Station of Antwerp. with just 2 rehearsals they created this amazing stunt!  Those 4 fantastic minutes started the 23 of march 2009, 08:00 AM.  It is a promotion stunt for a Belgian television program, where they are looking for someone to play the leading role, in the musical of “The Sound of Music”.

If you can not attend, please take a minute and visit the Health-Justice website and see what else they are actively doing.   They have many ways available for  you to  help.   They have established quite an impressive array of e-mail and fax tools…   They also are sponsoring many new TV ads.   So check the site out and please HELP!        LINK

~ Real and affordable help is available for MRSA ~

Sebelius Says Single Payer Never and Transparency NOT

NPR reported this from an interview yesterday with HHS Secy. Kathleen Sebelius:

“Asked if the administration’s program will be drafted specifically to prevent it from evolving into a single-payer plan, Sebelius says: “I think that’s very much the case, and again, if you want anybody to convince people of that, talk to the single-payer proponents who are furious that the single-payer idea is not part of the discussion.”

Do you really need to ask why any longer?  If you want to know why – click  on the below!

Keep the Preasure On  – ASAP – Call, write, fax or e-mail all your representatives and tell them they must support Single Payer  HR676.    LINK

Now Call or Fax  Senator Max Baucus and tell him that SINGLE PAYER is indeed on the table &  let him know how much you “don’t respect” his performance!   And, remind him that he is representing the country, NOT  the health insurance & pharma industry in Healthcare Reform!  Phone: (202) 224-2651 (Office)   //  (202) 224-9412 (Fax)

And one more- Call President Obama at the White House (202-456-1414 or  202- 456-1111) and tell him what a mess Senator Max Baucus is making, arresting Doctors and Nurses, etc …  then remind him he said, “everyone would have a seat at the table”, tell him Single Payer is not for later, the time is NOW! 

Visit the Healthcare-Now and  the Physicians for a National Health Program web sites to learn more!

~ If you know anyone who needs help with MRSA – real help is available! ~

Why Single-Payer?   Because Nothing Less Will Do

by Healthcare-NOW!

These are frustrating times for single-payer advocates. We know we have the best solution to the healthcare crisis – one that is simple, economical, and humane. Most of the American people, and most doctors agree.

But Congress, instead of latching on to HR 676 and moving it toward adoption, is focused on new legislation. We have yet to see it, but we hear that it will keep private insurance companies front and center. It will include an individual mandate. And it will cost a bundle. It will be what the doctors in our movement might call an expensive placebo. Prescribing it, when you know it’s expensive and won’t work, is nothing less than criminal.

But let’s be clear–we must continue to advocate and organize for a solution that we believe in… (Read more)

Single payer: bold, affordable, humane

[The following is the testimony of Dr. Walter Tsou to the House Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions on June 10. The hearing was titled “Examining the single-payer health care option.”]

By Walter Tsou, M.D., M.P.H

Congressman Andrews and members of the HELP subcommittee, my name is Dr. Walter Tsou. I am a public health physician and former Health Commissioner of Philadelphia.

If you believe that every American has the right to quality, affordable health care, then the only affordable means to achieve that goal is through a properly financed, single-payer national health insurance program.

Attempting to reconcile the dual imperatives of universal coverage and cost control through alternative methods besides single payer is an exercise in futility. It is clear that cost controls mean that someone’s ox gets gored, either the taxpayers’, physicians’ and hospitals’, or the private health insurance industry’s. When some Congressional leaders declare that “single payer is off the table,” they are, in effect, saying that insurers will be protected, leaving the pain to patients, taxpayers and health care providers.

Let’s examine each of these categories: 

For the taxpayers, it is difficult to understand why we must endure an additional $1.5 trillion or more over the next decade in expenses at a time when our nation already spends 50 percent more per capita on health care than any other country in the world.

For physicians and hospitals, simply cutting reimbursements is counterproductive, especially at a time when we need to increase reimbursements for primary care and mental health services.

For the private insurance industry, they have dominated health care for the past 50 years, but it does not work. Despite a supposedly competitive marketplace, health care costs have skyrocketed, nearly 50 million are currently uninsured, and the quality of care for most Americans is “suboptimal,” in the words of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Choice is a total misnomer. Americans want to be able to choose their doctor and hospital, not their health plans.

A humane health care system should reinforce the safety net in the face of our nation’s worst recession since the Great Depression, but our profit-driven system kicks millions of Americans in the gut and leaves them both jobless and uninsured. We have saddled our nation with an inefficient and exorbitantly expensive health care system that drives jobs overseas where health benefit costs are low, and discourages entrepreneurs from striking out on their own for fear of losing their insurance coverage.

We need a far greater investment in community-based public health and preventive medicine, including home visitation for newborns and public health nurses doing chronic disease management in the community. But where will we get the funds?

Single payer is the only reform that can control health care costs. It does so by cutting insurance firms’ profits, streamlining the massive administrative apparatus that adds to the costs of hospital and doctors’ offices, using bulk purchasing, negotiating fee schedules with physicians, and putting hospitals on predictable, global budgets.

The $19 billion that has been set aside for health information technology is doomed to fail because it is dependent on a complex, fragmented health care financing system. In contrast, consider Taiwan, where everyone has a smart card. Your smart card carries your medical history and can be viewed by any doctor in Taiwan. Their national database allows them to identify the few outliers who try to abuse the system, rather than hassling millions of doctors and patients.

What the Internet has done to transform telecommunications across the world is what single payer will do to transform how we deliver health care in America. A national public health database would allow us to direct resources to areas of greatest need. We can change the incentives in reimbursement to advance our national health goals embodied in Healthy People 2020 and reward communities that help achieve those goals. This would encourage health professionals and hospitals to work together with local health departments to advance national health objectives.

President Obama has stated that if he were to start over again he would favor a single-payer system, but argues that moving to single payer is too radical.

Well, I come from Philadelphia where revolutionary ideas are celebrated not dismissed. Our most famous radical document begins with the words, “We the People,” not “We the Insurers.” “We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union . . . to promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” This nation captured the world’s imagination with bold ideas that put the people first. It is time for our own generation’s revolution.

Keep the Preasure On  – ASAP – Call, write, fax or e-mail all your representatives and tell them they need to support Single Payer  HR676.    LINK

Now Call or Fax  Senator Max Baucus and tell him that SINGLE PAYER is indeed on the table &  let him know how much you “don’t respect” his performance!   And, he is representing the country, NOT  the health insurance & pharma industry in Healthcare reform!  Phone: (202) 224-2651 (Office)   //  (202) 224-9412 (Fax)

And one more- Call President Obama at the White House (202-456-1414 or  202- 456-1111) and tell him what a mess Senator Max Baucus is making, arresting Doctors and Nurses…  then remind him he said, “everyone would have a seat at the table”, tell him Single Payer is not for later, the time is NOW! 

Visit the Healthcare-Now and  the Physicians for a National Health Program web sites to learn more!

~ If you know anyone who needs help with MRSA – real help is available! ~

Physicians like Dr. Carol Paris were among 13 people arrested for demanding single-payer health reform be “on the table” at two Senate Finance Committee meetings in May. Their dignified acts civil disobedience followed Sen. Max Baucus’ disregard for tens of thousands of e-mail messages, phone calls, letters and faxes.

Click here for analysis and lobbying materials.

Keep the Preasure On  – ASAP – Call, write, fax or e-mail all your representatives and tell them they need to support Single Payer  HR676.    LINK

Now Call or Fax  Senator Max Baucus and tell him that SINGLE PAYER is indeed on the table &  let him know how much you “don’t respect” his performance!   And, he is representing the country, NOT  the health insurance & pharma industry in Healthcare reform!  Phone: (202) 224-2651 (Office)   //  (202) 224-9412 (Fax)

And one more- Call President Obama at the White House (202-456-1414 or  202- 456-1111) and tell him what a mess Senator Max Baucus is making, arresting Doctors and Nurses…  then remind him he said, “everyone would have a seat at the table”, tell him Single Payer is not for later, the time is NOW! 

Visit the Healthcare-Now and  the Physicians for a National Health Program web sites to learn more!

Rose Ann DeMoro:   There’s a Conspiracy of Silence Against Single Payer!
June 4, 2009 by Healthcare-NOW!

Rose Ann DeMoro is the executive director of the California Nurses Association and a National V.P. of the AFL-CIO. On June 3, 2009, she spoke at a Capitol Hill press conference called by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), on the issue of a Single Payer Healthcare System.

Ms. DeMoro said: “There is a conspiracy of silence” against Single Payer in the Congress. “We’re going to have to turn up the heat” if we want to get anything done. She added that Single Payer “has been kept off the agenda” and that there was a lack of “political will” in the Congress about doing the right thing with respect to the current crisis in health care. The press conference took place in the Dirksen Senate Office Building. The healthcare activists are supporting HR 676 and S 703, now pending before the Congress.

Keep the Preasure On  – ASAP – Call, write, fax or e-mail all your representatives and tell them they need to support Single Payer  HR676.    LINK

Now Call or Fax  Senator Max Baucus and tell him that SINGLE PAYER is indeed on the table &  let him know how much you “don’t respect” his performance!   And, he is representing the country, NOT  the health insurance & pharma industry in Healthcare reform!  Phone: (202) 224-2651 (Office)   //  (202) 224-9412 (Fax)

And one more- Call President Obama at the White House (202-456-1414 or  202- 456-1111) and tell him what a mess Senator Max Baucus is making, arresting Doctors and Nurses…  then remind him he said, “everyone would have a seat at the table”, tell him Single Payer is not for later, the time is NOW! 

Visit the Healthcare-Now and  the Physicians for a National Health Program web sites to learn more!

~ Enter to win the Amazon Dream Baby Registry, plus a year’s supply of Huggies Supreme diapers! ~

Inside the Baucus Single-Payer Meeting – What Was Said, What’s Next

by National Nurses Movement //  Wed Jun 03, 2009

Today’s meeting of the nation’s leading single payer activists with Sen. Max Baucus was historic, and a recognition of the power of the tens of thousands of nurses, doctors, and grassroots activists across the country who have been turning up the heat on the policy makers in Washington.

Make no mistake – your voices are being heard. And, the protests and pressure will continue.

As Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, told Baucus, “there is a groundswell” across the country that will continue to press for single payer reform, and Baucus and other policy makers in Washington “are going to get to know us very well.”  In a later press conference, DeMoro blasted the conventional wisdom that single payer is not politically viable. “Is it politically viable to let people die and suffer from a lack of political will?” Noting the fight for women’s suffrage and the civil rights movement, she emphasized, “we’re going to have to turn up the heat. Women did not get the right to vote by voting on it.”

National Nurses Movement’s diary :: ::
Today’s gripping meeting was in itself an important part of that campaign, with leaders of the CNA/NNOC, Physicians for a National Health Program, and Sen. Bernie Sanders, author of a single payer bill in the Senate, S 703, making a forceful, unfiltered case to one of the top power brokers in the Senate, Max Baucus, for single payer as the only reform likely to actually fix our broken healthcare system and effectively control costs.  A couple of photos from the press conference afterwards are here.

For the first time, Baucus, who has been deluged with protests inside his Senate Finance Committee which has been in the forefront of drafting legislation and in town hall meetings at home in Montana, was apologetic. “I made a mistake,” he said, “I should have left it (single payer) on the table, front and center with everything else.”

Baucus talked about his own positive experiences in Canada where he inspected the Canadian healthcare system first hand, “I was very impressed,” during the healthcare debate in the early 1990s, noting the contrast between a Montana hospital which has an “entire floor” of people devoted to billing, and other administrative paper work, and a nearby Canadian hospital which does it all “in one room.     (read more)

Keep the Preasure On  – ASAP – Call, write, fax or e-mail all your representatives and tell them they need to support Single Payer  HR676.    LINK

Now Call or Fax  Senator Max Baucus and tell him that SINGLE PAYER is indeed on the table &  let him know how much you “don’t respect” his performance!   And, he is representing the country, NOT  the health insurance & pharma industry in Healthcare reform!  Phone: (202) 224-2651 (Office)   //  (202) 224-9412 (Fax)

And one more- Call President Obama at the White House (202-456-1414 or  202- 456-1111) and tell him what a mess Senator Max Baucus is making, arresting Doctors and Nurses…  then remind him he said, “everyone would have a seat at the table”, tell him Single Payer is not for later, the time is NOW! 

Visit the Healthcare-Now and  the Physicians for a National Health Program web sites to learn more!

Stay Informed – Best Seller Books, Best Prices!

New York State Senate Resolution urges passage of H.R. 676

June 3, 2009 by Healthcare-NOW! 

The New York State Senate passed a resolution on June 2, 2009 supporting HR 676 and national, single-payer healthcare. The language of the resolution is as follows.

New York State Senate Resolution
Urging the New York State Congressional delegation to enact H.R. 676

Adopted 06/02/09

BILL TEXT: 2313
Sponsor: Senator BRESLIN
Cosponsors: Senators ADDABBO, DIAZ, DUANE, ESPADA, HASSELL-THOMPSON, ONORATO, SCHNEIDERMAN, STAVISKY, THOMPSON

LEGISLATIVE RESOLUTION urging the New York State Congressional delegation to enact H.R. 676, the United States National Health Care Act

WHEREAS, Every person in New York State and in all the United States deserves access to affordable, quality health care; and

WHEREAS, There is a growing crisis in health care in the United States of America, manifested in rising health care costs, increased premiums, out-of-pocket spending, decreased international business
competitive- ness, and massive layoffs; and

WHEREAS, As of May of 2009, approximately 2.6 million New Yorkers lack health insurance; and

WHEREAS, Those uninsured now often experience unacceptable medical debt and sometimes life-threatening delays in obtaining health care; and

WHEREAS, One-half of all personal bankruptcies are due to illnesses or medical bills; and

WHEREAS, The increasing expense of Medicaid and the rising costs of insuring state employees and teachers can best be met not by limiting benefits, but by expanding them under a national, publicly-funded health insurance program; and

WHEREAS, The complex bureaucracy arising from our system of fragmented, for-profit, multi-payer system of health care financing consumes approximately 30 percent of the United States’ healthcare
spending; and

WHEREAS, United States Representatives John Conyers, Yvette D. Clarke, Eliot L. Engel, Maurice D. Hinchey, Carolyn B. Maloney, Eric J.J. Massa, Gregory W. Meeks, Jerrold Nadler, Paul D. Tonko, Edolphus Towns and Nydia M. Velazquez have introduced H.R. 676, the United States National Health Care Act, in the United States House of Representatives for the 111th Congress, this Act would provide a universal, comprehensive, single payer system of high quality national health insurance; and

WHEREAS, Passage of H.R. 676 would save New York State citizens, businesses and governmental bodies at least ten billion dollars ($10,000,000,000) annually in health care costs; now, therefore, be it

RESOLVED, That the New York State Congressional delegation be and hereby is respectfully memorialized by this Legislative Body to enact H.R. 676, the United States National Health Care Act; and be it further

RESOLVED, That copies of this Resolution, suitably engrossed, be transmitted to each member of the Congressional delegation from the State of New York.

ASAP – Call, write, fax or e-mail all your representatives and tell them they need to support Single Payer  HR676.    LINK

Now Call or Fax  Senator Max Baucus and tell him that SINGLE PAYER is indeed on the table &  let him know how much you “don’t respect” his performance!   And, he is representing the country not one state in Healthcare reform!  Phone: (202) 224-2651 (Office)   //  (202) 224-9412 (Fax)

And one more- Call President Obama at the White House (202-456-1414 or  202- 456-1111) and tell him what a mess Senator Max Baucus is making arresting Doctors and Nurses…  then remind him he said, “everyone would have a seat at the table”, tell him Single Payer is not for later, the time is NOW! 

Visit the Healthcare-Now and  the Physicians for a National Health Program web sites to learn more!

~ If you need real HELP for an MRSA innfection ~

Baucus Battered By Voters For Health Care Stand     
By Ryan Grim for Huffington-Post

Sen. Max Baucus got some not-so friendly advice from his Montana constituents last week as he works to reform the health care system: You’re doing it all wrong. Baucus, the chair of the Finance Committee and the leader of reform efforts in the Senate, scheduled 20 town hall meetings with constituents across the state to talk about the future of health care. The Senate was out of session, but Baucus, a Democrat, didn’t personally attend. Instead, he sent staff and a video-recorded message.

“I really want to hear from all of you,” Baucus said on the video, according to local media. “You’re my employers. You’re my bosses. You’re the people I work for. I’m just the hired hand. I want to hear what you want to see in any legislation we pass in Washington, D.C.”

He got what he asked for.

Five separate accounts of the meetings, published in four different local papers, show Montana voters were downright hostile to Baucus’ reform proposal. Baucus has been a staunch opponent of single-payer health care, a system in which the government would provide universal coverage.

Baucus has kept single-payer advocates out of negotiations and has yet to endorse a compromise proposal by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) that would give Americans the option of buying into a publicly run plan that would compete with private insurers.

That stance put his staffers up against a wall, facing angry constituents fed up by what they viewed as a lack of courage in Washington.

“Majority wants single-payer health care,” headlined an account in the Helena Independent Record.

Lets us hope that Senator Max Baucus (Health Ins & Pharma Whore) will listen his 900,000 “bosses” from his home state!   He certainly is not listening to anyone else…   With the exception of the health insurance and pharma industries… 

Now – Call, write, fax or e-mail all your representatives and tell them they need to support Single Payer  HR676.    LINK

Call or Fax  Senator Max Baucus and tell him that SINGLE PAYER is indeed on the table &  let him know how much you “don’t respect” his performance!   And, he is representing the country not one state in Healthcare reform!  Phone: (202) 224-2651 (Office)   //  (202) 224-9412 (Fax)

And- And one more- Call President Obama at the White House (202-456-1414 or  202- 456-1111) and tell him what a mess Senator Max Baucus is making arresting Doctors and Nurses…  then remind him he said, “everyone would have a seat at the table”, tell him Single Payer is not for later, the time is NOW! 

Visit the Healthcare-Now and  the Physicians for a National Health Program web sites to learn more!

Kindle – Amazing new Wireless Reading Device

Yesterday, a group of DC residents delivered 68,000 petitions to the NBC studios in Washington, demanding Rick Scott’s phony infomercial be pulled. You should have seen the look on the producer’s face when she saw the boxes of signatures waiting for her in the lobby.

Despite the objections from thousands of viewers, NBC went ahead and aired Rick Scott’s 30-minute attack ad against health care reform. And, just as we had warned, it was filled with shameful and misleading distortions.

It’s going to be up to us to push back on Rick Scott with the truth about President Obama’s plan to fix health care. This Saturday, thousands of Americans will be hosting health care organizing kickoffs in their communities.

Will you take part?  This is a critical opportunity to tell the real story of President Obama’s plan for health care reform: http://action.seiu.org/page/s/june6signups

After 80 years, we finally have the solution to this health care crisis in our sights. Getting there is going to require an all-out sprint to the finish line that starts right now. Let’s show opponents like Rick Scott that no amount of expensive television ads can stop us from winning quality, affordable health care for every American. 

Posted for my friends at the

Service Employees Union International Union, CTW, CLC
Jessica Kutch
Online Campaign Manager
SEIU Healthcare

~ Did you know that there is a cure for MRSA? ~