All posts by randyshannon

elections, health care

The Fight for National Healthcare is also the Fight for Obama’s Agenda for Change

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Pres. Obama & Chief Rahm Emanuel
Pres. Obama & Chief Rahm Emanuel

Has Obama lost the trust of progressives, as Krugman says?

Paul Krugman says “yes.” Is the health care fight an opportunity to change who wins in Washington?

Glenn Greenwald

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/

 Aug. 21, 2009 

Paul Krugman has an excellent column today arguing that progressives have backlashed so intensely over the prospect of Obama’s dropping the public option because — for reasons extending far beyond specific health care issues — they no longer trust the President.  Citing Obama’s steadfast continuation of Bush/Cheney Terrorism policies, the administration’s extreme coziness with crisis-causing banks, and the endless retreats on health care, Krugman says that “a backlash in the progressive base . . . has been building for months” and that “progressives are now in revolt. Mr. Obama took their trust for granted, and in the process lost it.”  

Krugman contends that while “the fight over the public option involves real policy substance,” it is at least as much “a proxy for broader questions about the president’s priorities and overall approach.”  That’s the argument I made the other day about why the health care fight is so important regardless of one’s views of the public option.  The central pledges of the Obama campaign were less about specific policy positions and much more about changing the way Washington works — to liberate political outcomes from the dictates of corporate interests; to ensure vast new levels of transparency in government; to separate our national security and terrorism approaches from the politics of fear.  With some mild exceptions, those have been repeatedly violated.  Negotiating his health care reform plan in total secrecy and converting it into a gigantic gift to the pharmaceutical and insurance industries — which is exactly what a plan with (1) mandates, (2) no public option and (3) a ban on bulk negotiations for drug prices would be — would constitute yet another core violation of those commitments, yet another bolstering (a major one) of the very power dynamic he vowed to subvert.

  Continue reading The Fight for National Healthcare is also the Fight for Obama’s Agenda for Change →

health care

Congress Can Save Healthcare Reform by Passing the Weiner Amendment for Medicare for All

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Cong. Anthony Weiner
Cong. Anthony Weiner

Memo to the left on healthcare – don’t mourn, escalate

by National Nurses Movement

Tue Aug 18, 2009 at 04:12:03 PM PDT

There’s a fundamental lesson in collective bargaining that seems to have been lost on the White House, and those in Congress who devised their failing strategy on healthcare reform:

Don’t make all your compromises before you walk in the room.

For all those now wringing their hands over the apparent abandonment of the public option and like Rachel Maddow  dissecting the train wreck of the once promising opportunity for genuine healthcare reform, it’s time to ask:  what happened? who could have foreseen that semi barreling down the highway? and what do we do now?

Continue reading Congress Can Save Healthcare Reform by Passing the Weiner Amendment for Medicare for All →

health care

Cong. Weiner Discusses Medicare for All on Morning Joe TV Show

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 For rest of interview go to next page.

Continue reading Cong. Weiner Discusses Medicare for All on Morning Joe TV Show →

health care

Obama Concession on ‘Public Option’ Compromise Is Attempt to Sidetrack Single Payer Option

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Progressives must turn up the heat for the Single Payer option – the Weiner Amendment to HR 3200, to be introduced on floor of House in September. The Weiner Amendment substitutes the text of HR 676 the National Healthcare Act for the current text of HR 3200, the liberal compromise with the insurance industry.

See article below by liberal blogger Jane Hamsher. The debate about public option is a phony debate because there are not enough votes to pass a healthcare bill without the public option, and the White House knows this. Why start a debate about the public option? Because the grassroots pressure for Medicare for All is building and word of the Weiner amendment is spreading. Call your Congressperson and ask for a Yes vote on the Weiner amendment.

Obama picks public option fight with liberals

by Jane Hamsher

Founder, FireDogLake.com

Many people are rightly upset that the White House is sending stronger and stronger signals that they are willing to jettison a public option.  What was once the defining feature of the Obama health care plan has now been dismissed with a bipartisan flourish.  “[I]t’s both the right and the left that have become so fixated on this that they forget everything else,” he says.

There are 435 seats on the House.  Of those, 257 are filled by Democrats and 178 by Republicans.  Which means a majority is 218.  The Republicans have vowed to vote against health care, period.  The Democrats can pass health care on their own, but if they lose 40 of their own, they only have 217 votes.

Continue reading Obama Concession on ‘Public Option’ Compromise Is Attempt to Sidetrack Single Payer Option →

health care, labor

AFL-CIO convention may feature showdown over health care

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AFL-CIO convention may feature showdown over health care

By Mark Gruenberg

16 August 2009

WASHINGTON – With one month to go before September’s national AFL-CIO Convention in Pittsburgh, the biggest floor fight there may be over health care. And that floor fight, in turn, could affect the whole health care battle on Capitol Hill and nationally.
That’s because while the federation has supported and actively campaigned for legislation based on the principles of universality, cost controls, choosing your own doctor and a government-run alternative to the insurance companies, 552 labor bodies — from international unions down to local councils — want to go in a different direction: A government-run single-payer Medicare-like system.So if the AFL-CIO yanks its support for legislation being considered in Congress, and backed by Democratic President Barack Obama, that legislation could sink.

Continue reading AFL-CIO convention may feature showdown over health care →
health care

Complete Analysis of Right Wing Lies about Healthcare Reform Bill

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The Complete Deconstructing the Right Wing Lies on the Health Insurance Bill

The right’s lies about the current health insurance proposals before Congress have rarely been compiled in such concise form before.

To view article, please click on the link below –

http://pleasecutthecrap.typepad.com/main/deconstructing-rw-lies-hcbill.html

health care, labor

August 14 Deadline for Single Payer Resolutions to AFL-CIO Convention

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Many HR 676 Resolutions submitted to AFL-CIO Convention

From South Carolina to Alaska and California to Vermont over 40 labor organizations have sent in resolutions calling on the AFL-CIO Convention to endorse HR 676, single payer healthcare legislation introduced by Congressman John Conyers (D-MI).

The AFL-CIO convention will meet in Pittsburgh September 13-17th.  The deadline for resolutions to be received is August 14.

Continue reading August 14 Deadline for Single Payer Resolutions to AFL-CIO Convention →

health care, labor

“If national health insurance is socialism, we need all the socialism we can get!” – retired USWA District 20 Director Tony Rainaldi

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Tony Rainaldi
Tony Rainaldi

by Randy Shannon

 

August 9, 2009

On a warm breezy August Sunday afternoon over seventy-five retired steelworkers and their families enjoyed their annual picnic in Hopewell Community Park near Aliquippa, PA. The menu included corn-on-the-cob, kielbasa and kraut, roasted chicken with potatoes, salad, desert, and beverages. The event was sponsored by the Aliquippa chapter of SOAR, the Steelworkers Organization of Active Retirees.

As the empty plates were cleaned away and the buzz died down, Marion Prasjner, Chapter 20-20 Chairman, welcomed the crowd and introduced the guests. Prasjner is also a leader of the PA 4th CD Chapter of Progressive Democrats of America. He introduced Marie Malagreca, the first national chairperson of SOAR, Jean Friday National Board member of SOAR, and Mickey Bolt PA coordinator for AAM.

Jim Centner, the National SOAR director reminded people to sign up for the bus to the upcoming Labor Day parade in Pittsburgh. Denise Edwards a SOAR board member thanked the members for the enthusiastic turnout.

Tony Rainaldi, an Aliquippa Chapter SOAR member, and former District 20 Director of the USWA spoke to the gathering. In a strong 85 year old voice he lambasted the Beaver County Times for its recent attack on local union leaders. He excoriated the television media for lying about the Democratic Party, President Obama, and the fight for healthcare.

He shouted: “Don’t listen to this bullshit you hear about socialism on TV. Unionization, pension protection, healthcare – if that’s socialism then we need as much socialism as we can get. I’m a socialist. The day I graduated from high school my Dad handed me a union card to sign and took me down to the mill.” This statement drew long and loud applause.

Continue reading “If national health insurance is socialism, we need all the socialism we can get!” – retired USWA District 20 Director Tony Rainaldi →