Putting my mouth where my money is
This morning I wrote about Obama’s health-care reform plan. I said that it doesn’t go far enough and that single-payer is the only way to go. Then I said write a letter and call your reps. Then I made all the calls. Went right down the list and here are the responses I got:
Senator Max Baucus at (202) 224-2651: His aide thanked me for calling and said she would pass on the message.
Senator Charles Schumer at 202-224-6542: Same as above.
Senator Edward Kennedy at (202) 224-:The aide said that The Senator was already in favor of single-payer and thanked me for calling. Said they were getting alot of calls on this. Was very nice.
Senator John Rockefeller at (202) 224-6472; Left a message on the recorder.
Ways and Means Committee Chair Charlie Rangel (202) 225-3625) Said she would get the message to the congressman.
Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Henry Waxman (202) 225-2927); Told me I should contact me representative. I told her my representative already represents me (Eric Massa). She, somewhat nastily said, “Well, that’s the best way to do it.”
Education and Labor Committee Chair George Miller: Told me that there would be a hearing on single payer June 10th and it would be live streamed. Very helpful and positive response in general.
Related posts:
I don’t know, I’ve got RT telling me that Obama’s plan is bad and at the same moment I get an email from another local liberal activist asking me to sign a petition in support of Obama’s plan (via move on).
My gut says that I’d prefer single-payer, but that an all at once approach might fail miserably and so I’m thinking Obama’s got the right idea. I still don’t get the difference between single payer and public option though.
Guess one of these days I’m going to have to research it myself and make up my own mind
I got the same emails, myself, Andrea. Yes, certainly, making up one’s own mind is what we should all be doing. I’ve been asked by Move-on and Metro Justice to sign a petition to support the President’s plan. But, I’m not drinking the Max Baucus Kool-aid. It is not too late for Single-Payer if reform has not already happened. Although, when Baucus said it was too late, I’m sure he misspoke. I’m sure what he MEANT to say was, “We’ve all been bought and paid for by Big Insurance and Big Pharma and we couldn’t possibly go with single payer because then their profits would go down”.
Check out the hearing on Single-payer scheduled for June 10th. (see above)
The good thing about the MoveOn petition is that after you sign it allows you to add a comment. Like Single-payer HR676 provides the greatest cost reductions to address our healthcare and economic crisis.
Yeah I hear you Andrea.
See - the Public Option isn’t defined. I suppose it could be a lot of things or nothing at all. Obama’s plan has three tenents. Other plans have multiple tenets. yet what exactly they are going to do or how to do it is ill-defined. Frankly , I’d like to see the “public option” be a single payer option
As commenter Nicholas Wilt pointed out - there are currently three bills in Congress. 2 in the house and 1 in the Senate - all Single payer focused bills. Heck we currently have a single payer system already in place - Medicare.
In the end it comes down to a strategy. Do we ask for what we want or somehow stop short and hope we get what we want.
Sort of like S-chip. We asked for expansion of S-Chip, It was rejected but we didn’t stop asking - and ultimately we changed the make up of Congress as well as the White House and drum roll please - got S-chip expansion.
[...] We posted this powerful video of a women whose husband’s illness caused her family to go bankrupt. btp hones his conversation skills and talks to a doctor about single payer. Ladkiddo tries to define “Single Payer” and “Public Option”. Herculean task to be sure, because, well, the “Public Option” is not really defined by the people pushing “public Option”. There are some broad set of principles (still not fully defined) that vary between advocacy groups but it isn’t defined. Meanwhile President Obama gets asked about Health Care and there was this write-up and call to action. Ladkiddo makes the calls and tells us about them. [...]