July 19, 2007 - Issue 238

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Single-Payer Healthcare - Part 24
Healthcare-NOW Activists Redoubling Efforts
Linking Healthcare to Other Issues
By Marilyn Clement
National Coordinator, Healthcare-NOW

Now is the time to redouble our efforts. Michael Moore and his truly revolutionary film have opened up the debate made possible by the magic of the big screen told through a magic guru truth-teller and the true stories of the people.

The rest of the media has shut out the truth about the current corrupt system and the option of a single payer healthcare guarantee for the last four years paying no attention to our growing success in building this movement. No matter how hard we have tried, the media have continued to pronounce that single payer was not on the table, that Congress would never give up their relationship to Big Pharma and Big Insurance in order to provide everybody with guaranteed quality healthcare, that the insurance companies and their cronies would never allow their profits to give sway to healthcare as a human right. The media has promoted every possible business coalition, hybrid plan and compromise that might allow the insurance companies to continue to control the healthcare system. They have made it clear that the news they report is really owned by the business interests – the news does not have to be true. It just has to serve business.

Mostly they have just ignored the single payer guaranteed healthcare movement. But not any more!

“SiCKO” has turned the tide. If you have not taken a group of people to see it and started organizing a response in your city, please do it now. Don’t delay another day. You will be saddened, encouraged and energized.

Now is the time for you to do the most important job that ONLY YOU can do. You must get your Congress Members signed on as endorsers of H.R. 676. A bill must be introduced in the Senate. We must reach out for Republicans and Independents, Blue Dogs and Dem Dogs, conservatives and liberals, incorrigibles and incurable lackeys for the medicine for profit system. The list of the 75 courageous endorsing Members can be found at the link below along with a link to your Member of Congress. You know what to do.

Now is the time to create a new Healthcare-NOW coalition in your community to share this work. It is time to talk with your mayor and get him/her to endorse and to work for H.R. 676, the United States National Health Insurance Act. Mayors are in trouble. Their healthcare systems are crumbling and their unfunded legacy costs for healthcare and pensions for their workers are growing out of sight. The only way they can solve these problems is with a national single payer healthcare system. Hold a truth hearing to educate and organize to win this. Check our website for organizing ideas.

Healthcare-NOW has opened up a small legislative/education office in Washington, D.C. Our new office can help get appointments for you with Members of Congress, finding out their positions on healthcare and plans for hearings, researching the amounts of money and the sources of funding being received by our members of Congress from the health industrial complex so you can use those facts in your campaigning. We will also help you with resources and information as you organize meetings in your Congressional District. Send a request for help to [email protected] There will be special call-in days and the Bankruptcy Hearings being organized by Rep. John Conyers that started on July 17th.

Would you like to do Bird-dog training? We will be doing this training in several regions of the country. This is training for tracking (bird-dogging) the presidential and congressional candidates and helping them to see that guaranteed national healthcare without the insurance industry is what the people really want. They need to see our massive and determined movement of dedicated voters so they can be clear about our plans for healing healthcare in this country. If you are interested in organizing bird-dog training in your area, please be in touch with our office. Click here to contact Ms. Clement and Healthcare-NOW.

Write your Member of Congress. Ask him/her to become a co-sponsor of H.R. 676:

Congressional Co-Sponsors
How to Write to Them

You are terrific. We love you. Keep on!

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.

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