10-20-07, 9:55 am
Dear Healthcare People:
I am feeling excited and optimistic. I have friends who are really depressed – and there is plenty to be depressed about, particularly after seeing the Congress bow low again at the feet of the President as he vetoes children’s health, surveys our activities through warrantless wiretapping, and puts forward an attorney general nominee who fails to renounce the forms of torture that we have seen these last six years. One friend quoted Dante, “Abandon all hope.”
But I am optimistic. And my optimism is not just because of my nature. It is because of the growing movement that you, the national healthcare movement is building -- and the creativity of the people who are key to making the changes we need so desperately.
You received Steve Skvara’s letter. It was his idea to write a letter to our whole mailing list asking for financial support for Healthcare-NOW and telling his personal story of loss of much of his pension and healthcare because of the bankruptcy of LTV. Steve, the retired Steelworker, spoke courageously to the Presidential candidates asking them to fix the healthcare and pension systems, and asked “What’s Wrong with America?” And now he is joining us on his crutches with his beautiful smiling face to help run the “Sicko-Cure” Road Show and challenge the Congress to pass a guaranteed healthcare bill for everybody in this country for life! (H.R. 676)
Donna Smith, of SiCKO fame, whose family had paid for insurance their whole working lives and were bankrupted and destitute after becoming sick has also written a letter in support of the Healthcare-NOW campaign, and she will be on the Sicko-Cure Road Show with us. She is a former newspaper editor and great writer and you’ll be seeing her letter soon.
Then I received a letter tonight from Elizabeth Hall with links to five new Healthcare-Now “My Space” entries from Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, North and South Dakota. Hundreds of people have already joined in just the last week.
The people understand that what we need is “single payer.” They are not fooled by the so-called “universal healthcare” rhetoric of the candidates. Our folks are continuing to sign on new members of Congress in support of H.R. 676. We are now up to 85 Members of the House endorsing the bill. Oprah Winfrey is an advocate. Tavis Smiley has put healthcare for everyone as his #1 issue. The Spiritual Progressives are actively campaigning for single payer. Michael Moore’s irreplaceable film is a rolling demand for healthcare for all and a huge asset for our organizing. (Watch for the release on DVD November 6th.) We have 330 labor union endorsements including the State AFL-CIO’s in 25 states so far. The numbers of doctors and nurses in support of single payer are growing. What if we had just stopped in the face of the recalcitrant Republican president and 14 years of Republican rule in the Congress and said, “This is not the time to organize for single payer. Let’s just wait until there is a Democratic house and administration? Then we will start organizing.
OK. So yes, there is plenty to be depressed about if you think about how hard it will be to elect the kind of new progressive Congress that will put a national single payer bill before the next president for a signature and implementation. If we do that one thing, then we won’t even need a separate children’s health program. And there are still those who believe it is just “not feasible” (because they are waiting for someone else to lead… to make it feasible). But in just three years, you’ve helped to redeem the term “single payer” for the people of the U.S. This happened despite the fact that the term had been demeaned and denounced and kicked to the side of the road by the private corporate health industrial complex and their captive media.
But listen to these notes I received this week with creative suggestions about how to describe single payer (guaranteed national healthcare for everybody). These organizers will make even the dourest detractors optimistic.
Jeni from the Pulse Colorado group said, “I’m thinking about Single Payer. It is very simple. Single payer means just that. Single payer and nothing else. It is NOT socialized medicine. It is NOT government-dictated healthcare. It is NOT having all providers work for the government. It is simply a ONE PAYER SYSTEM that is uncomplicated and will bring forth efficiency in healthcare. Single payer means that individuals will actually have more freedom to choose providers and hospitals and providers and hospitals can spend more money on healthcare services instead of bookkeeping. This will build healthy competition in quality assurance in that all providers will be equals unlike now where the multi payer system makes the patients a captive audience. Ironically, these single or one payer plans support the very concept of a return to a pure patient/doctor relationship that conservatives rave about frequently. We should get this one point out…”
Jon Jonik, the famous cartoonist from Philadelphia wrote “What about wording some material along the lines of…
“Big insurance, thanks anyway, but we can administer our own health care.”
Putting ourselves in charge of our healthcare, owning our own healthcare through our own non-privatized democratic system, choosing whatever providers we want, being free to get healthcare, no matter who or where we are. That’s what we want.
In addition to all of this encouragement coming unexpectedly from people all over the country, I am excited about the staff of Healthcare-NOW, most of whom are volunteers and all of whom are dedicated to winning this campaign, and the Road Show and other national strategies that they are working on. The Road Show will travel all over the United States targeting districts where we need to do work for single payer (H.R. 676). We will visit 11 states between November and December 15th making waves in 22 Congressional Districts. Check the website to see the Road Show information and figure out how you can contribute to making this strategy work.
You might think that we are no competition. The giant privatization juggernaut of the healthcare industry cannot be stopped. But that is not true will not give up and let us have our own national healthcare system easily without a fight, but we are strong. Our commitment is our strength. Our solidarity will make it happen.
* Please keep organizing, * keep pledging to Healthcare-NOW, hitting the Donate NOW button on the website, giving a large donation now * wearing your orange Healthcare-NOW t-shirt, (We’ve got great big ones and also little ones) * writing and visiting your members of Congress, * visiting the editorial board of your newspaper (it works; we’ve tried it), * organizing Healthcare-NOW coalitions in your community, * showing SiCKO and talking to your neighbors, * joining the Road Show, * exposing big insurance and big pharma’s big profits, * volunteering for Healthcare-NOW.
We want to hear from you today.
Here’s the Healthcare-NOW site.
Here’s the Road Show site. Here’s our phone number: 1-800-453-1305. And here’s our email:
--Marilyn Clement, National Coordinator Healthcare-NOW
