True to his word…..
….and I would expect nothing less, Eric Massa is joining Obama’s health care coalition. Health care reform has been a major part of Eric’s campaign platform. Proponents of HR 676 walked in parades in support of Eric and many signs proclaiming, “I am a Health Care voter”, (in one way or another) showed up to walk along side him as well. His position on health care reform can be found here. From MPN.com:
“The issue of health care is probably why I was elected,” said Massa, who ran a close race against U.S. Rep. Randy Kuhl, R-Hammondsport.
Massa ran on a platform of reforming the health-care system to ensure all Americans have access to affordable, quality care. He said his personal experiences have fueled his passion for overhauling the system. Eleven years ago, at age 38, Massa was diagnosed with terminal cancer and doctors told him he had four months to live. As a Navy officer, he was luckier than most to have good health-insurance coverage, he said. Then, during his campaign to unseat Kuhl, Massa said he was further prompted to action when he met thousands of people forgoing health care because they lacked insurance or were under-insured.
Nationwide, about 47 million people don’t have health insurance and 16 million are under-insured. According to a new survey conducted by research and polling firms BearingPoint Inc. and Zogby International, about one in 10 adults are likely to either drop their health insurance plan or switch to a plan with lower premiums and less attractive benefits due to the economic climate and cost of care.
[snip]
Those backing Health Care of America Now are focused on establishing a single-
payer system to provide universal coverage. The system would work by keeping the doctor-patient relationship personal and private, but costs and payments would be centrally managed to reduce overhead and operational costs. The plan would encourage preventive health care and is intended to drive down costs by simplifying paperwork and reimbursement processes, Massa explained during his campaign.As for addressing health-care proposals already in Congress, Massa said Friday that after taking office he would “support immediately” increasing the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). The federal program was created in 1997 to address the growing number of children without health insurance. A controversial expansion of the program was vetoed twice by the Bush administration and will likely be voted on again after Obama takes office.
The American people are ready for a single payer system and this is the issue which will have to take priority as soon as our new president has been sworn in. This is not something that we can pussy-foot around any longer. The move will have to be quick and decisive and guided, instead of by fear, by hope.
You have people counting on you:
Yes we can.
(update, ladkiddo here: researching this further, I have come upon information about HCAN (Health Care for America Now) which would indicate that they are not what they appear to be. from PNHP’s blog:
Where is the money coming from and why is it going to this campaign that does not actually have a specific call to action? The official message from on high is that HCAN is grassroots. Yup $40 million bucks, top down pre-determined pre-compromised message by K-Steet establishment. Nicely done professional Ads. Paid staffers sent out on-message from central office. But we are told its grassroots. So says Ezra Klein. So says David Sirota (who really should know better). Well HCAN is many things. It is a lot of money beng spent with our message that the for-profit private insurance companies are the problem. But grassroots it obviously is not! Sheesh. These are grassroots!
What it really is, is about building mailing lists and fundraising and get-out-the vote for November. It is a $40 million investment in party organizing. Think of it as the Democratic messaging counterpart to the National Rifle Association. In addition, the campaign is going to take advantage of MoveOn.org’s massive data files to reach out to like-minded supporters and officials promised to work in Democratic and Republican districts alike. “We’ll have an organizer in the district of every Blue Dog Democrat,” said HCAN campaign manager Richard Kirsch of the conservative Democrats. I guess that is all good. But it would be nice if for $40 million dollars they supported something without pre-compromising.
It is not single payer and it doesn’t seem to be grassroots, I think I may be a little concerned here.)
Related posts:
[...] post below got me doing a little research. The difference between the two health-care reform groups she talks [...]
[...] there wasn’t any doubt, he was already on the case as he attended orientation and working on Healthcare issues. Better educate yourself on [...]
BRIAN: Are you the Judean People’s Front?
REG: Fuck off!
BRIAN: What?
REG: Judean People’s Front. We’re the People’s Front of Judea! Judean People’s Front. Cawk.
FRANCIS: Wankers.
BRIAN: Can I… join your group?
REG: No. Piss off.
From Monty Python’s Life of Brian
**************************************
Round up the guns for the circular firing squad folks. It’s time for the left to destroy itself. No need for FBI infiltration - we just do it ourselves.
HCAN is part of a grassroots national network of organizations, of which Metro Justice is affiliated. We have close to 1,000 dues paying members in the Rochester area. If that’s not grassroots then what is? Let’s be clear here folks- in order to build the effective infrastructure to take on the monied status quo we need to work together and build think tanks and national organizations with MONEY. We did that and HCAN is the result.
Bottom line- HCAN does not put forward any public policy positions. The campaign is organized around basic standards for quality affordable healthcare. Those standards were decided on by the input of MANY grassroots groups working in a democratic fashion. The idea is to be able to push elected officials to craft public policy that lives up to the standards.
The criticism of HCAN all comes down to one standard which states that Americans should have a choice to choose a public plan or a private insurance provider. This has been misconstrued to mean that HCAN is against single payer. Actually, HCAN has stated that a single payer system would work for their standards.
Portraying an authentic grassroots initiative as the big bad wolf is either ignorant or disingenuous. At the very least we should be asking each other questions, not hurling accusations at each other.
We shouldn’t have to chose between the Judean People’s Front and the People’s Front of Judea.