“AS I SEE IT”
Opinion, by Stephen F. Kislock III
November 3, 2009
Blue Dog Democrats, New Democrats Coalition! What the Hell happens to the Old Democrats?
This article is based on “New Democrats’ Rx for Health Reform (*)”, with Blue Dog Congressman Altmire as co-chair.
Progressives Democrats have no place at this table, WHY?
The “Party of No”, Blue Dogs and New Democrats are one and the same. How can Blue Dogs and New Democrats, use the term Democrat?
Photo: High-tech Machine Tools from MCC
By Carl Davidson
Beaver County Blue
Oct. 27, 2009–The United Steel Workers Union, North America’s largest industrial trade union, announced a new collaboration with the world’s largest worker-owned cooperative, Mondragon International, based in the Basque region of Spain.
News of the announcement spread rapidly throughout the communities of global justice activists, trade union militants, economic democracy and socialist organizers, green entrepreneurs and cooperative practitioners of all sorts. More than a few raised an eyebrow, but the overwhelming response was, “Terrific! How can we help?”
The vision behind the agreement is job creation, but with a new twist. Since government efforts were being stifled by the greed of financial speculators and private capital was more interested in cheap labor abroad, unions will take matters into their own hands, find willing partners, and create jobs themselves, but in sustainable businesses owned by the workers.
Continue reading Steelworkers Seek Job Creation via Worker-Owned Factories
NAACP CALLS ON CONGRESS TO ACT SWIFTLY TO REPAIR AND IMPROVE BROKEN HEALTH CARE SYSTEM
NAACP DISPELS DECEPTIVE AND MISLEADING MYTHS AROUND HEALTH CARE REFORM WHILE SUPPORTING A STRONG PUBLIC OPTION
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THE ISSUE:
Americans today are too often struggling and straining under the burden of three related trends: shrinking health care coverage, rising health care costs or no health care insurance at all. Over the last decade, millions of Americans have found themselves uninsured, and millions more have become underinsured as the value of their coverage has declined. In the years 2008 – 2010, it is estimated that approximately 6,000 people a day, or almost 7 million Americans total, will lose their health insurance. Today, more than 46 million Americans do not have any health care insurance at all. At the same time, health insurance premiums and out-of-pocket costs have risen steadily, and the number of families who are facing unmanageably high health care costs continues to grow. In fact, nearly one in four non-elderly Americans are in families that will spend more than 10% of their pre-tax dollars on health care in 2009, and the vast majority of them (more than 82%) have health care insurance. Furthermore, in the United States today the color of your skin, your ethnic background and where you live can not only influence your health care access and quality; they can determine them. And while medical science has made a lot of advances over the last 10 years, the gains made by the discovery of new drugs and treatments have not passed on to all segments of our population.
Continue reading NAACP Calls for a “Strong Public Option” in Healthcare Reform
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
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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:
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. |
by Randy Shannon
Beaver County Peace Links and the PA 4th CD Chapter of Progressive Democrats of America hold a weekly vigil for Healthcare not Warfare every Saturday at 1pm for over five years.
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
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.
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?”
Beaver County Blue: Voice of the 17th CD of Progressive Democrats of America 