PHA-Exch> [Healthcare-now] The Candidates are Disappointing? Don't mourn; organize!

[Marilyn Clement]

SINGLE PAYER ELECTION STRESS SYNDROME?   

 

Over the past two weeks I have received a lot of emails from people who are
depressed realizing that neither the Democratic or Republican candidates are
yet supporting guaranteed quality single payer healthcare for all.  They
want to know "Who is better?  Obama or Clinton?" 

 

What is obvious to all of us is that neither of them is willing to utter the
"S" word - Single Payer.  They have been terrified by the traditionalist
Washington Beltway groups who insist that single payer is "not feasible."
That we must wait until we have a really progressive government in place
before we can hope to push forward for a healthcare system that would
eliminate the role of the insurance companies.  They are willing to wait
another four to eight years or more to begin working for single payer.

 

However, more and more people know that the insurance companies are killing
people - every day.  The new statistics show that 101,000 people in the U.S.
die unnecessarily from illness - far more than any of the single payer
countries that provide healthcare for all of their people-no questions
asked.  

 

Who is going to bell the cat?  Millions of new people are joining us who
want real change in this system of privatization and denial. Isn't this the
perfect time for us to be saying to Clinton and Obama and McCain that we
insist on single payer, a healthcare system that works for all of us, that
will not deny anyone based on ability to pay?  

 

MY ANSWER to all of the people who want to know who is better is to say that
all of them have defective healthcare programs.  Hillary Clinton supports
the atrocious individual mandate program introduced in Massachusetts and
California by Republic governors Romney and Schwarzenegger.  It is also
supported by the Heritage Foundation and the insurance companies who are
making a killing off of the fact that the government of Massachusetts is
criminalizing anyone in the state who does not purchase insurance from them.
Many of them are being forced to pay penalties even though they still don't
have any health insurance.  Ms Clinton almost got it right in one of the
debates when she said, well, if people were not required to participate, the
Medicare and Social Security programs wouldn't work.  

 

Of course, the difference is that Medicare and Social Security serve
everybody without denials because they are programs that belong to us, the
citizens.  We ought to have Medicare handling our national healthcare
system. 

 

But Barack Obama did not pick up on that opening.  It would have been a
perfect opportunity to say, "Then why don't we go for Medicare for All?  It
would cost less and provide more!"  He didn't do it.   He too is requiring
everyone to purchase insurance, even when he talks about his plan that would
allow everyone to participate in the Federal Employees program - a program
that provides everybody with a list of private insurance companies from whom
they must purchase their insurance.   

 

BUT DO NOT DESPAIR!

 

To be fair, both Hillary and Barack talk about some kind of public plan too.
NO DETAILS YET. Unfortunately, you can bet your bottom dollar that the
insurance companies will not allow that public program to be a really
competitive program that would attract virtually everybody to go for public
healthcare with no denials, no premiums, co-pays or deductibles - The truth
is it would cost billions of dollars less if we removed the insurance
companies and their profits, lobbyists, advertising, and provide better
healthcare for everybody.  

 

SO, HOW CAN WE PREVAIL? Big question. But we should be clear that we don't
have to wait any longer.  "We are the ones we have been waiting for,"   to
quote June Jordan and Miss Ella Baker of the civil rights movement.  We have
work to do right now.

 

WE must elect new progressive congress members in every Congressional
District or re-elect those who are already supporting single payer national
healthcare and opposing the war.  They must hear our loud demand that we
want "HEALTHCARE-NOT WARFARE."   We can elect these people.  If you are in a
district where no one is running against a bad Congress member, run a
candidate in opposition.  Even if the primary is over in your district, run
a WRITE-IN CANDIDATE.  This is our year to win!  But we can't win it if we
are not in it.  I can't urge you strongly enough.  A number of candidates
have dropped out of the race - Bush supporters who see the handwriting on
the wall.  More will do so.  Anything can happen.  In the meantime, more and
more single payer people are throwing their hats into the ring.  

 

This letter is going out to an additional 10,000 people this time.  People
have been sending their lists to us to invite people to join.  

 

So, here's the deal.  Our national activist list is going to be organizing
debates and truth hearings, demonstrations in front of insurance companies,
memorial vigils remembering those who have died because of insurance company
denials, conferences in Boston, Oakland and Minneapolis to help us learn
about healthcare as a human right and to be able to articulate the problems
with the individual mandate programs.     

 

Please get involved yourself and send us the contacts for your friends and
neighbors, relatives and email buddies if they too would like to work for a
single payer national healthcare system right now in this strategic period.
We will connect them to the campaign being organized by some of the student
groups working in healthcare clinics nationwide and/or the healthcare-now
activists working in our communities nationwide, organizing candidate
debates and truth hearings.  Just send names to me directly at
info at healthcare-now.org. We need names, addresses and emails.  We will
return to you and each of your friends a Tool Kit for Organizing -- with
critical information about contacts in their community and their
Congressional District number. 

 

If you can't help us with the organizing, please send a contribution.  Just
go to our website,  www.healthcare-now.org <http://www.healthcare-now.org/>
and hit DONATE NOW.  This may be the most important gift you ever gave in
this important time in our history, maybe the best chance we will have
within the next twenty years or even in our lifetime to get a guaranteed
national single payer healthcare system.   

 

Think about how fabulous it would be to have a healthcare system where NO
ONE IS EVER DENIED!  And where our money is going to healthcare, not
corporate profits.  To read about H.R. 676.   Go to
http://www.healthcare-now.org/hr676.html 

 

Way to go folks!  Don't give up. Don't give in to despair.  This is a
goooood time to do this work because our organizing work is paying off.  Are
there still naysayers?  Sure, but negatives aside, we are on a roll!
Popular fighting Senator Sheila Khuel of California said recently, " Single
Payer Unfeasible?"  Only if you are not willing to fight the insurance
companies!"  

 

Let's go for it! READ INSURANCE <http://www.healthcare-now.org/#private>
HAS FAILED US, by Laura McClure.   Much love and support to all of you,
1-800-453-1305 

 

Marilyn Clement,

National Coordinator

Healthcare-NOW

www.healthcare-now.org

 

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