10-26-06, 8:53 am
So, now the movement is growing by leaps and bounds. Through our rapid response network and the Citizen/Congressional Hearings, both major media and many Members of Congress have become convinced. Through your stalwart efforts, your constant advocacy and your creative organizing events, “single payer” has become the buzzword that people now understand. You’ve helped many sectors, particularly the labor movement (thanks to our Kentucky organizer, Kay Tillow) and the “barely insured middle class” to understand that we are all in jeopardy but that there is a solution.
Does this mean that we are almost there? Not hardly. Does it mean that the health industrial complex will just roll over and quit lobbying state and federal legislators to sign onto plans that will keep their profits growing? That’ll be the day!
The industry’s private profiteers are trying all kinds of schemes to keep themselves in control of our healthcare dollars and our healthcare system. But more and more thousands of people are “onto them”…becoming aware that we don’t need them. What we need is a “single payer” solution that we can afford and that will work for every person in this country. And by the way, our success on this issue will have a positive effect for people all over the world, particularly in poor countries who are struggling to get the profits out their healthcare systems.
What can you do? Get out the vote. Talk to everybody. Be sure that all the people who support us are elected or re-elected. Be sure they know we expect them to fight for us once they get into office. Then get ready to work harder than ever to organize the people, participate in organizing, push through the hearings, and foment the legislative debate that will get us where we need to be in 2008.
Healthcare-NOW organizers will be having a National Strategy Meeting the weekend after the election. At that time, we will be deciding together on the strategies we will pursue during the coming months. Send us your ideas. Send us some money! It is an opportunity for you to step up to the plate and play a strategic role. I don’t like to ask for money, but please, send us some money! We can’t do any of this without you! Just go to our website and put in your credit card number on the “Donate” button now. Or write a check. www.healthcare-now.org Then, call us up or send us an email to share your strategy ideas. We really want to hear from you.
Healthcare-NOW is a movement of volunteers working very long hours. Already, we have coalitions in about 120 cities. Remember, “Movement Building” is the way we have always won people’s victories in this country. That’s why you as a volunteer organizer and all the people you talk to in your own community are so important. You are a part of a growing movement. Now is our time, perhaps the only time we will have in the near future! We are closer to a national healthcare system than we have been in 50 years. But it won’t come easily. You can play a strategic and historic role in winning the right to health care and defeating the healthcare profiteers. Do it NOW at the polls and NOW with your contributions and ideas. Don’t wait. Our combined efforts are essential. We probably won’t have this opportunity again for a very long time. Write us; call us; join us now.
--Marilyn Clement, National Coordinator Healthcare-NOW
