After the election, November 2006
The voters have spoken. They want healthcare now.
They expect Congress to move quickly to fix the healthcare system
in the United States. And they want something like a single-payer
system, a plan where everybody gets the healthcare they need and
where all of us pay into it on a sliding scale based on our income.
Single payer is the way to pay for healthcare without providing
insurance companies with hundreds of billions of our money providing
them with hundreds of billions of dollars in profits. We just need
healthcare. We don’t need health insurance companies. Health
insurance companies don’t provide any healthcare.
In addition to profiting shamelessly from our illnesses,
the health insurance industry is an irresponsible corporate citizen
in other respects. A substantial part of their portfolio is invested
in the tobacco industry and much of their original wealth was generated
on writing health insurance policies on African people who were
enslaved in the United States. In response, a national boycott of
Aetna has been called because of its acknowledged role in chattel
slavery. For more information on this national boycott, google the
Restitution Study Group. Healthcare-Now is exposing the myths regarding
the actual role of the health insurance industry presently and historically
within the United States. We are simply revealing the facts and
telling the truth.
Accordingly, during the coming two years, Healthcare-NOW
will help to organize 1,000 TRUTH HEARINGS in Congressional Districts
nationwide to give the voters a chance to tell their stories and
to give Congress an opportunity to hear their constituents and respond
to their desperation for healthcare. This will give everybody an
opportunity to see whether our votes really count -- before the
2008 elections.
We expect there will be excuses from Congress and
from Beltway analysts about how hard it is to put together a national
healthcare system that would satisfy the voters and provide a 21st
Century healthcare system in our country; but we know that an excellent
plan has already been introduced into Congress, H.R. 676, written
by Congressman John Conyers. The insurance companies are trying
every which way to stop this movement so they are devising new ways
to “cover the uninsured” while lining their own pockets
with government money. But Congress has the power to make the change
to single payer if they are appropriately challenged by their base.
It is not harder to create a national healthcare system
than it is to end the war and the occupation of Iraq.
In fact, 79 thoughtful and committed Members of Congress
endorsed the Conyers' bill in 2006. Now we must ask them to do it
again. All Congressional bills are reintroduced at the beginning
of a new session. We also have to reach out to another 100 or more
members of Congress to help them understand the issue and get them
to endorse. Some additional Congress members are coming forward
to sign on since the election mandate, but it won’t happen
massively unless a groundswell of citizens and residents in every
Congressional District visits their Members and helps them understand
what they need to do.
We
have to remember (and remind our Members that we remember) that
industry lobbyists for the corporate healthcare industry outnumber
members of Congress. They will be all over Washington like white
on rice, trying to save their mammoth profits and trying to stymie
any forward movement toward the kind of single payer healthcare
system, H.R. 676, that would cut their profits and instead provide
those exact same billions to providing comprehensive healthcare
for the uninsured and underinsured.
Some will say, “What if the President vetoes
the bill?” So what? If the President vetoes it, his party
will have to pay the consequences. If he signs it, the family values
people (all of us); the Independents and Democrats and the Republicans
who desperately need healthcare will be helped.
Others say, “This Congress is not yet good enough.
We need to wait until we have more progressives in Congress and
a progressive president.” We say, “Don’t hold
your breath! This may be the best Congress we will have in the next
20 years. We cannot wait any longer.”
So there is no excuse. The time for Congress to act
decisively for healthcare for all of our people is now.
HERE’s what you can do. Plan a hearing –
or several hearings in your immediate vicinity. The first hearings
can be small – just people telling their stories about the
abuses of the current healthcare system, checking on the status
of their Congress member on the issue, and moving quickly to insist
that their Congress members commit to H.R. 676, endorse it and work
for it.
The next Truth Hearings in your community and around
the country should grow in size until Congress can no longer deny
us quality affordable national healthcare coverage.
Since the lobbyists for the insurance and drug corporations
will try to stop any progress, we should work with people toward
passage of campaign finance reform too while we are at it. Let’s
get corporate America out of control of our electoral system and
our healthcare system at the same time.
Plan the actions you will take after your hearing
including more hearings, make visits to your Congress person’s
district office until he or she endorses H.R. 676.
Take actions in your community, in your neighborhood.
Organize educational activities, invite a speaker. Get endorsements
and sign-ons by organizations, cities, governors, labor and faith
groups, chronic disease groups, and individuals; share information
through the Internet, and every other creative means you can devise.
A film festival in your community is a really good way to build
your activist committee. (We suggest Denzel Washington’s “John
Q” and other films listed on our website.) www.healthcare-now.org,
or make your own film about the healthcare crisis. Put it on “You
Tube” or show it in your community.
We have to disrupt the negative mantra that says,
“We just can’t do this. It is too hard.” It is
not harder than ending the Iraq war or providing a decent minimum
wage or providing the means for our kids to go to college. It is
a matter of political will. We can do this.
As Congressman John Conyers said last week in the
national strategy meeting of Healthcare-NOW, “This is the
Time. We’ve finally arrived. We’ve done it before and
we can do it again.” He speaks from the wisdom of many winning
victories in the Congress for the human needs of our country. We’ve
lost many battles, and we’ve won a few. Now is the time to
win – and to keep on winning. We don’t want to come
up to 2008 having fallen short of our promises to the people who
are DYING for healthcare.
If you are up for organizing a hearing in your
neighborhood or other activities, be in touch with Healthcare-NOW.
We are waiting to hear from YOU. 1-800-453-1305, www.healthcare-now.org.;
email [email protected]
If you’d like to be on our national mailing list, let us know.
Marilyn Clement, National Coordinator, Healthcare-NOW. Click
here to contact Ms. Clement and Healthcarde-NOW.
Click
here to read any of the articles in this special BC
series on Single-Payer Healthcare.
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