Maybe I gave up hope too soon?
Aug. 6th, 2009 12:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
averygoodun42So, I've been out of sorts with America lately (in case you hadn't noticed). Logical and compassionate thought has been lacking something fierce around here where health care is concerned, which I take as a symptom of the national attitude in general. IMO, if we can't care for our citizens, we aren't a nation of any value.
However, yesterday I got some encouraging news in my inbox. I receive the PNHP (Physicians for a National Health Program) newsletter because I think (as well as believe) that a nationalized insurance program is the only sensible, affordable and realistic way of covering every citizen. It works very well in just about every industrialized nation of the world, and for MUCH less than we are currently spending on our free-market program.
Even John Mauldin, arch conservative, reluctantly agrees that socialists do it better, cheaper.
But the insurance industry and big business have been attacking the mere thought of single payer as the equivalent to bringing Communism to America. It isn't. It is just making health care a Right rather than the privilege it's become. Much like fire fighting used to be a private club but is now a public service because even the poor have fires (and we want to keep the poor out of sight, you know, because they're all so dirty).
So anyway,
August 5, 2009
Dear PNHP Members and Friends,
Breaking News!
Last Friday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi committed to bringing single-payer to a vote before the full House of Representatives when the chamber reconvenes to debate national health care reform in September.
The vote will come in the form of an amendment to the House Leadership's incremental health legislation. The amendment, offered by Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY), would effectively remove the entire existing health plan and replace it with the text of H.R. 676, Rep. John Conyers' single-payer legislation. (The text of the amendment)
This vote presents a truly historic opportunity - the first time that single-payer will be voted on in the Congress.
PNHP and allied groups are now marshaling our forces to win maximum support for the Weiner single-payer amendment. We're launching a new national campaign staffed by Ali Thebert and Nicholas Skala to make sure that members of Congress hear from their physician constituents that single payer is the only solution to the U.S. health care crisis.
So please, if you agree that every citizen should have access to good medical care without courting bankruptcy, and want the US to adopt a plan that won't bankrupt the nation, call your representative and let them know that SINGLE PAYER IS THE WAY TO GO!
(Oh, and this comic puts it so succinctly and perfectly. I love Tom Tomorrow almost as much as I love John Stewart.) (ETA: I corrected the link.)
However, yesterday I got some encouraging news in my inbox. I receive the PNHP (Physicians for a National Health Program) newsletter because I think (as well as believe) that a nationalized insurance program is the only sensible, affordable and realistic way of covering every citizen. It works very well in just about every industrialized nation of the world, and for MUCH less than we are currently spending on our free-market program.
Even John Mauldin, arch conservative, reluctantly agrees that socialists do it better, cheaper.
But the insurance industry and big business have been attacking the mere thought of single payer as the equivalent to bringing Communism to America. It isn't. It is just making health care a Right rather than the privilege it's become. Much like fire fighting used to be a private club but is now a public service because even the poor have fires (and we want to keep the poor out of sight, you know, because they're all so dirty).
So anyway,
August 5, 2009
Dear PNHP Members and Friends,
Breaking News!
Last Friday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi committed to bringing single-payer to a vote before the full House of Representatives when the chamber reconvenes to debate national health care reform in September.
The vote will come in the form of an amendment to the House Leadership's incremental health legislation. The amendment, offered by Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY), would effectively remove the entire existing health plan and replace it with the text of H.R. 676, Rep. John Conyers' single-payer legislation. (The text of the amendment)
This vote presents a truly historic opportunity - the first time that single-payer will be voted on in the Congress.
PNHP and allied groups are now marshaling our forces to win maximum support for the Weiner single-payer amendment. We're launching a new national campaign staffed by Ali Thebert and Nicholas Skala to make sure that members of Congress hear from their physician constituents that single payer is the only solution to the U.S. health care crisis.
So please, if you agree that every citizen should have access to good medical care without courting bankruptcy, and want the US to adopt a plan that won't bankrupt the nation, call your representative and let them know that SINGLE PAYER IS THE WAY TO GO!
(Oh, and this comic puts it so succinctly and perfectly. I love Tom Tomorrow almost as much as I love John Stewart.) (ETA: I corrected the link.)
