Category Archives: health care

elections, health care

Public Pressure Needed on Cong. Pelosi to Allow Single Payer Vote as Promised – Make That Call 202-225-4965

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Remember Medicare for All in the healthcare reform debate

by Kay Tillow, Coordinator
All Unions Committee For Single Payer Health Care–HR 676
Nurses Professional Organization
11/03/09 10:06 AM ET
We are in danger of losing the opportunity to bring Improved Medicare for All, a single payer plan, before the Congress.  Last July Congressman Anthony Weiner and six of his colleagues on the Energy and Commerce Committee attempted to substitute the real public option—HR 676, a single payer plan—for the healthcare reform in the House.  Speaker Nancy Pelosi assured them that if they withdrew the amendment in committee they would have an opportunity to bring it to the House floor for a debate and vote.  Now Pelosi is threatening to keep the Weiner Single Payer Amendment from seeing the light of day.

Continue reading Public Pressure Needed on Cong. Pelosi to Allow Single Payer Vote as Promised – Make That Call 202-225-4965 →

elections, health care

Ask Cong. Altmire to Vote YES on Single Payer Amendments

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Congressman Sees Votes in ‘Mid-100s’ for Single-Payer

By Michael O’Brien
November 1, 2009

Take Action: Tell Speaker Pelosi “Reinsert the Kucinich amendment”
Published by The Hill.

An amendment to implement a single-payer health system could get between 100 and 200 votes, one of its sponsors claimed Friday.

Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.), one of the liberal lawmakers to have led the push for such an amendment, predicted votes in the “mid-100s” on a provision for a single-payer system in the House–if such a vote is even allowed. 

Continue reading Ask Cong. Altmire to Vote YES on Single Payer Amendments →

health care

Last Call for Meaningful Healthcare Reform

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Healthcare reform is a four-letter word

We are all frustrated by the Affordable Health Care for America Act-H.R. 3962–the House’s lamentable healthcare reform bill, if you can call it reform at all. We think of it as tweaking a badly broken system–at best it’s a band-aid on a hemorrhaging system–although, it does appear to be drawing fewer flies than the Senate version.

There’s still time to make it better-much better-but not a lot of time. The bill will be finalized by 5:00 PM Monday evening.

We need to call the bill’s “managers” on Monday, November 2, and insist that the Kucinich Amendment be reinserted in the bill. Pelosi reneged on her deal with Weiner-she can make up for it by reinserting the Kucinich amendment.

The “gang” that holds our future in their hands includes:

  • Speaker Nancy Pelosi: Washington, DC, office (202) 225-4965; San Francisco office (415) 556-4862
  • Majority Leader Steny Hoyer: Washington, DC, office (202) 225-4131; Greenbelt office (301) 474-0119; Waldorf office (301) 843-1577
  • Rep. Henry Waxman: Washington, DC, office (202) 225-3976; Los Angeles office (323) 651-1040
  • Rep. Charles Rangel: Washington, DC, office (202) 225-4365; New York office (212) 663-3900
  • Rep. George Miller: Washington, DC, office (202) 225-2095; Concord office (925) 602-1880; Richmond office (510) 262-6500; Vallejo office (707) 645-1888

It’s crucial for everyone in PDA to make these calls, and to tell others to make these calls. TODAY! Be polite, but let them know you’re angry, and that you vote.

So many of us have poured our heart and souls into Medicare for All; our disappointment could lead us to give up. Any right worth having is worth fighting for, so the fight goes on. We’ll do our best to make this bad bill better in the House and in the Senate. Then we’ll take this fight to the states.

Susan B. Anthony, William Lloyd Garrison, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King didn’t give up-neither will we. Please, make those calls.

In solidarity,

Tim Carpenter for PDA

P.S. If you haven’t had a chance yet, please read Pelosi’s Not-So-Robust Public Option.
health care

Negotiated Public Option vs. Medicare Plus 5% Public Option May Be a Disaster

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Will the public plan have higher premiums than private insurance?

By Ezra Klein  |  October 30, 2009; 10:07 AM ET

I’ve been saying that a public option with negotiated rates probably won’t post much of a price advantage against private insurers. But according to the Congressional Budget Office (pdf), that’s was overoptimistic. The public option’s premiums, they say, will actually be more expensive than private insurance.

Continue reading Negotiated Public Option vs. Medicare Plus 5% Public Option May Be a Disaster →

health care

Congressional Progressive Caucus Continues Fight for Affordable Quality Universal Healthcare

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Grijalva Perseveres

October 30, 2009, Washington , DC

 

Grijalva Expresses Disappointment With House Bill, Vows Robust Amendment

Congressman Grijalva announced his deep disappointment, yesterday, that a robust public option was not included in the House version of health care reform legislation released on Thursday. He said he would fight for a floor vote on including a robust plan in the bill, which will require approval by leadership and the Rules Committee.  
 

Continue reading Congressional Progressive Caucus Continues Fight for Affordable Quality Universal Healthcare →

elections, health care

Cong. Kucinich: Moment of Truth for Democratic Party – For the people’s health or insurance company profits?

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Will We Stand for the People or the Insurance Companies?

By Dennis Kucinich
October 29, 2009, Washington, DC

October 28, 2009–Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) today made the following statement about the health care debate in America:
 
“Providing health care to all Americans is the moral responsibility of our government, consistent with the Preamble in the Constitution. Yet we are being told that it is not possible to have the kind of single payer health system which every industrialized democracy in the world has.

“We compromised on single payer by backing a public option, and now we are being asked to compromise the public option with negotiated rates. In conference, we will likely be asked to compromise negotiated rates with a trigger.  In each and every step of the health care debate, the insurance companies have won. If they get hundreds of billions of dollars in new taxpayer subsidies, they get to raise their premiums, and increase their co pays and deductibles, while the public is forced to pay for private insurance, then the insurance companies win big.
 
“If this is the best we can do, then it is time to ask ourselves whether the two-party system is truly capable of representing the American people or whether the system has been so compromised by special interests that we can’t even protect the health of our own people. This is a moment of truth for the Democratic Party.  Will we stand for the people or the insurance companies?”

elections, health care, labor

PA AFL-CIO Pres. Bill George to Cong. Jason Altmire – Vote right on healthcare or don’t come back

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PA AFL-CIO Pres. Bill George
PA AFL-CIO Pres. Bill George

by Randy Shannon 

October 23, 2009

Pennsylvania AFL-CIO President Bill George, a former USW Local 1211 officer and an open hearth worker at Aliquippa’s former Jones &Laughlin  Steel, accepted the Beaver-Lawrence Labor Council’s honor of induction into the Labor Council Hall of Fame.

Labor Council Legislative Liason Charlie Hamilton also received a Labor Hall of Fame Award. Mr. Hamilton is a retired but dues paying member of the NALC Branch 84 and a former worker at Babcock and Wilcox. Mr. Hamilton talked about the union history of several generations of his family, and union activism as a way of life. 

Continue reading PA AFL-CIO Pres. Bill George to Cong. Jason Altmire – Vote right on healthcare or don’t come back →

health care

Rally for Healthcare NOT Warfare Beaver Courthouse Saturday 1pm

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Pennsylvania 4th Congressional District Chapter – Progressive Democrats of America

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                    Contact: Ms. Tina B. Shannon, 724.843.0545

October 14, 2009                                                           

                                                                                      

 Healthcare NOT Warfare Rally at Beaver County Courthouse

At 1:00 pm Oct. 17th

 

BEAVER, October 14 – A coalition of grass roots organizations concerned about healthcare cost and availability will hold a rally calling for a shift in spending priorities to healthcare over foreign wars and Wall Street bailouts. Tina Shannon, Chairperson of the local Progressive Democrats stated: “Blue Dog Democrat Congressman Jason Altmire voted to spend $billions for the Afghanistan War and occupation of Iraq but refuses to support Medicare for All. We will let him know that our #1 priority is meaningful healthcare reform.”

  Continue reading Rally for Healthcare NOT Warfare Beaver Courthouse Saturday 1pm →

elections, health care

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Altmire Voting with Insurance Lobbyists

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Buchanan’s bid: Altmire had better dance with his original partners
Monday, October 12, 2009
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

If politics were tag team wrestling, U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan would get in the ring against Democratic Rep. Jason Altmire in the 4th Congressional District race next fall, taking up the fight where Melissa Hart, another conservative supporter of George W. Bush, left off. And like tag team wrestling, it would be sort of fun for those of us in the cheap seats.

Continue reading Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Altmire Voting with Insurance Lobbyists →

health care

Keith Olberman’s Special on Healthcare Reform – Don’t Miss It

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Go to this link for Keith Olberman’s dramatic plea for reform and condemnation of the evil enterprise known as insurance companies.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/#33217219