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NOTICE to CONGRESS: Since your approval rating among the voters is now down to 23%, here’s a helpful suggestion. The quickest way to regain the confidence of the American people is to hold hearings on the healthcare crisis and pass H.R. 676, the United States National Health Insurance Act.

When Michael Moore's office for "SiCKO" called to say that Healthcare-NOW had been chosen for a benefit showing of the new Michael Moore film on June 28th, we were thrilled and honored.

Now, since we have seen "SiCKO," we are even more honored. This almost-flawless film is a resounding call for a national single payer healthcare system. It helps you make the case for yourself: do we need guaranteed national healthcare for all? Well, yes! But it does it in a subtle way. The stories of the people make the case. Michael Moore is sort of in the background, finding the people, listening to their plight, comparing the U.S. system to other systems and coming to the conclusion that the health insurance industry is unnecessary and that the Big Pharma industry must be controlled like a public utility - something necessary to our people's well-being that must be regulated.

Not unexpectedly, the healthcare industry keeps on lying - with hundreds of billions of advertising and propaganda dollars purloined from our pockets, money we paid them "to provide healthcare." They complain that people wait in countries where everybody has guaranteed healthcare. They don't notice or mention the 50 million people waiting here in our own country. They don't admit that the decisions about who goes first for needed medical care in single payer countries are the doctors, not the insurance companies. Those decisions are based on sickness and need rather than on the ability to pay, as they are in this country. And they certainly don't admit that EVERYBODY gets healthcare - everybody in the single-payer countries.

Michael Moore pleads with us to overcome our petty differences and create programs that will make us a national community of caring people. He notes that the word "WE" was the first word used here as a nation, in the Declaration of Independence.

"SiCKO" is helping to turn the tide. As millions of people see simulations of their own stories of heartbreak and suffering on the screen and begin to understand that we, as a people, can change this system, the work of Healthcare-NOW becomes easier. We are no longer a voice "crying in the wilderness" saying, "people, come on, we can do this! We can win a guaranteed national healthcare system in this country, too."

Movies matter, and this particular movie matters a lot. We see a host of allies coming forward out of the wilderness. For example, we see business men and women coming out for a single-payer national healthcare system. Yesterday, on a conference call, a businessman friend complained that "one business (the healthcare industry) is stealing from the rest of the businesses in this country." He noted that healthcare is chopping away 17% of our gross national product. As a result, he is putting his energy into actively organizing the "Business Coalition for Single-Payer Healthcare."

The Business Coalition for Single Payer Healthcare says that "guaranteed healthcare for all under a Medicare-type program would emphasize several important business strategies and would cost a lot less to administer.

Insurance companies take 31% of every dollar for administration, including high CEO salaries, marketing, lobbying, bureaucracy and phenomenal stock-holder profits.

Medicare costs less than 3% to administer. Good business practices insist on cutting out the unnecessary middle man, building the largest possible pool of recipients, and negotiating the costs of drugs and medical equipment based from the strength of numbers, all 300 million of us.

So we are organizing for a great film benefit in Atlanta on June 28th - A sneak preview of "SiCKO" is specifically timed to the U.S. Social Forum, a gathering of thousands of activists and organizers from all around the country. People are still registering for that forum and for tickets to the benefit. They will carry our message into every corner of the country.

We are also holding a National Healthcare Truth Hearing over the three days of the Atlanta U.S. Social Forum. People are invited to come and talk about their own experiences and heartaches, bankruptcies, suffering and personal healthcare tragedies and to join in the discussion about how they can take action to help change this system. The hearings will be in conjunction with the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign on the 28th, with the Healing and Health Tent on the 29th and in the Renaissance Hotel Downtown ballroom on the 30th. Donna Smith from the SiCKO film will be joining us in the discussions. Come tell your story and help tell Congress what they must do to provide healthcare for all of us. Check out the schedule on our website.

If you can't get to Atlanta, organize wherever you are. Go to our website or phone 800-453-0351. Hold a hearing in your own community. We'll help with ideas and resources.

Finally, Don't Miss Seeing SiCKO this weekend - and carry copies of our flyer with you. You can print them from our website home page. Put your name and organizational information on the back. Pass them down the row to people inside or distribute them outside the theatre. OR BOTH. Help the people understand that we must "call on Congress to act for national healthcare NOW." We can’t continue to wait for healthcare in this country.

Here's a chant if you need one. "Everybody ought to know, Private Insurance Has Got to Go."

Marilyn Clement is the National Coordinator of Healthcare-NOW. Click here to contact Ms. Clement and Healthcare-NOW.

Click here to read any of the articles in this special BC series on Single-Payer Healthcare.