PHA-Exchange> [Healthcare-now] "SiCKO" How do we heal a nation?

Wed Jun 13 19:19:47 PDT 2007

Dear Healthcare Activists and Friends:

The list of people working for guaranteed national healthcare continues to
grow.  Many of you are working with new coalitions to move forward toward a
national single payer healthcare system.  We want comprehensive coverage for
everybody - leaving out the insurance company middle men - the middle men
who don't provide any healthcare to anybody.

As Michael Moore put it last week on Oprah "The more care they give you, the
less their profits."  The healthcare for-profit industry is required to
return the highest level of profits to its stockholders.  It is easy to
understand. Healthcare is not their primary interest.

That's why Michael Moore's film SiCKO is under attack by the Bush
administration and why the corporations that are least interested in
providing healthcare for their workers are creating all kinds of coalitions
with the Chamber of Commerce, the AARP and others.  They are trying hard to
block the program that most Americans want - single payer, a simple,
non-bureacratic delivery of healthcare,  paid for by all of us on a sliding
scale,  into a single structure such as Medicare, a program that would
provide much better benefits for everybody in this country. 

So, GET READY!  We have so much work to do, and it is going to be a lot of
fun.  Michael Moore is going all over the country helping people to
understand that our biggest healthcare problem is the insurance companies,
more than 1,500 of them with thousands of different plans.    And he is not
just preaching to the choir.   We need a single payer plan.  We have single
payer police; single payer libraries, single payer schools and roads, single
payer fire departments - Why?  Because it is just common sense.  We care
about ourselves and we care about our neighbors.  

Here are our plans:  Get ready to participate.

I. Organize around the opening of SiCKO in every city and hamlet.  Go see
the film.  Take a bunch of friends and relatives.  Have an event to talk
about it and activate an even bigger movement soon after you've seen the
film.  Look at our website to see what you can do to get Congress to pass
H.R.676, the single payer bill now.  Talk to your Senators and your Members
of the House.  Let them know that you want action NOW, not after the
election.  Unfortunately, we can't wait for these candidates to do the right
thing-.

Yes, it is a victory for our side that everybody is talking about universal
healthcare.  It is on the radar -- whereas a couple or three years ago, the
only thing they talked about was the protection of child health and
Medicaid.  Some are still stuck in the belief that there is nothing else we
can.  And even though childrens' health coverage, covering the uninsured,
overturning the Medicare "Modernization" (privatization) Act of 2003 and
other incremental measures are important,  lots of people are beginning to
focus more of their time on the broad strategy of changing this system -
getting single payer, guaranteed, national healthcare for all.  I believe
SiCKO will help make this happen.   This is the way we have won strategic
victories in the past.   As Rabbi Michael Lerner said this week,  "If you
want to change America, don't be reasonable!"

SHOWING THE MOVIE FREE - We need some extra bucks to provide the film free
to people around the country.  If someone can help us with this, we'll try
to do the same thing the Vermont people are doing - providing the film to
free health clinics and doctors' offices nationwide.  The Vermont poster is
attached.  They have offered this strategy for us to use too.  

We are having a Benefit Sneak Preview of "SiCKO" in Atlanta at the Plaza
Theatre on the night of June 28th along with the US Social Forum where there
will be 10,000 activists working together on the most critical issues of our
times. We hope the benefit will raise a lot of organizing money, and we are
grateful to Michael Moore and his crew. We are also trying to work out a
time for Michael Moore to speak to the body.   

IF YOU ARE COMING TO THE SOCIAL FORUM, Healthcare-NOW and the rest of the
healthcare community have a great set of programs every day.  A National
Truth Hearing, a bird-dogging training to challenge the presidential
candidates, a forum on solutions,  and other events -- see our website.

BUT, if you are coming, bring a hat, and sunscreen and sunglasses and a
little hand held fan - and ice!  It will probably be a hot and humid few
days.  Atlanta in June - haven't experienced it since the Civil Rights
Movement, but it will be an exciting time together.

THE  People's National March is in Newark on August 25th -- the anniversary
of Dr. King's first national march.  It will be an excellent time to raise
our voices together on the issues that clearly link together - war and
justice and human rights.  One of the major demands is the passage of H.R.
676, the United States National Health Insurance Act.   More information
coming.  Check our website for the call.  

Be in touch with us at Healthcare-NOW.  We are working with the Business
Coalition for Single Payer and a new network of faith groups talking about
"Healing Healthcare" in this nation. Go to our websites, join healthcare-now
or make a pledge to this work, become a national healthcare organizer in
your area.  We'll help you do it.    

www.healthcare-now.org <http://www.healthcare-now.org/>   or
www.medicareforall.net <http://www.medicareforall.net/>  

"SiCKO" opens nationwide on June 29th - Be there!  And take someone with
you.

You are a great friend and a constant inspiration to us here at
Healthcare-NOW.   Keep ON!

Marilyn Clement,

National Coordinator

Healthcare-NOW

339 Lafayette Street, NYC 10012

1-800-453-1305

www.healthcare-now.org

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