By Steve Rhodes
The Democrats fight amongst themselves while blaming everyone else. Edited for clarity and sanity.
August 18: From Dennis Kucinich:
HEALTH CARE WANTED: DEAD OR ALIVE
The masquerade is over! The “public option” is . . . dead.
Health care reform is now a private option: WHICH FOR PROFIT INSURANCE COMPANY DO YOU WANT? You have to choose. And you have to pay. If you have a low income, under HR3200 government will subsidize the private insurance companies and you will still have to pay premiums, co-pays and deductibles.
The Administration plan requires that everyone must have health insurance, so it is delivering tens of millions of new “customers” to the insurance companies. Health care? Not really. Insurance care! Absolutely. Cost controls? No chance.
You will next hear talk about “co-ops.” The truth is that insurance company campaign contributions have co-opted the public interest.
I need your help to spread the word and rally the nation around true health care reform which covers everyone and maintains fiscal integrity without breaking our nation’s bank! Your contribution will empower our efforts to continue to fight for the single-payer, not-for-profit health care bill, HR676 “Medicare for All,” which I co-authored with Rep. John Conyers. The bill now has 85 sponsors in the House.
The hotly-debated HR3200, the so-called “health care reform” bill, is nothing less than corporate welfare in the guise of social welfare and reform. It is a convoluted mess. The real debate which we should be having is not occurring.
Removing the “public option” from a public bill paid for by public money is not in the public interest. What is left is a “private option” paid for with public money. Why should public money be spent on a private option which does not guarantee 100% coverage nor have any cost controls? A true public option would provide 30% savings immediately which would then cover the 1/3rd of the population who presently have no health care.
Unfortunately, under HR3200, the Government is choosing winners and losers in the private sector; proposing to spend public funds on subsidizing insurance companies who make money not providing health care. This process will insure only the expansion of profits. Gone is the debate over cost.
As a result of current negotiations, the Medicare Part D rip-off will continue for another decade, further fleecing senior citizens. Drug importation has been dropped, so no inexpensive drugs can be accessed from other nations.
Instead we are told the pharmaceutical companies will accept a 2% cut in the growth rate of their profits – they call this cost control!
If the matter were not so serious, it would be farcical: The executive branch pretends that the proposed health care reforms are something they are not. The legislation is being attacked for something it is not. Congressional leadership and the White House defend the legislation, pretending it actually is the very proposal that is being attacked. But it is not.
A commonsense government health care reform policy would insure that every single American has full access to health care by expanding Medicare to cover everyone under a Single Payer System. We are already paying for a universal standard of care, it is just we are not getting it.
I need your help to spread the word and rally the nation around true health care reform which covers everyone and maintains fiscal integrity without subsidizing insurance and pharmaceutical companies and breaking our nation’s bank!
My voice in Congress will continue to challenge the special interests who do not want “single-payer” to succeed. I need you to join me in combating the special and corporate interests who spend millions to try to win this Congressional seat. With your help WE will win again. With your help I will continue to represent your concerns, be YOUR VOICE in the United States Congress, and be the voice for health care for all Americans!
Please contribute $25, $50, $100 in support of my campaign. Please contribute now.
With your help, we can accomplish ANYTHING in America. Persistence, dedication, truth and courage will lead the way and win out in the end.
August 18: From ProgressNow Colorado:
Is the public option dead? If you read the headlines, you’d think so. But it’s just not the case.
The bottom line is this: nothing has changed.
President Obama has always said that health insurance reform must lower costs, must ensure that there are affordable options for all Americans, and it must increase choice and competition.
He believes the public option is the best way to achieve those goals. Presidential senior advisor Valerie Jarrett reiterated that on Saturday at a public event, and this morning Secretary of Health Kathleen Sebelius was explicit: “We continue to support the public option that will help lower costs, give American consumers more choice, and keep private insurers honest.”
But industry lobbyists are still spending $1.4 million a day to convince Congress otherwise.
Tell Congress not to back down.
Despite the fear mongering and outright lies from reform opponents like State Senator Josh Penry, Coloradans need health insurance reform. Our premiums have increased 91% since 2000. Every day, 100 working working families lose their employer-sponsored insurance because it has become too expensive. And those who do have insurance worry about insurance company bureaucrats making decisions about their medical care instead of their doctor.
President Obama’s plan will ensure that Coloradans have secure, affordable choices for health insurance. A public health insurance option will serve as a check on the greed of the for-profit insurance industry.
Tell Congress to make sure a public option is included in the final bill.
Don’t let partisan ideologues like State Senator Josh Penry bamboozle the public into believing falsehoods about the President’s reform plan. In a recent op-ed, he wrote that reform “isn’t going to come from Washington, D.C.” but from “private-sector innovation.” It’s the same tired, hackneyed philosophy that brought us the health insurance system that is bankrupting Colorado families while lining the pockets of health insurance CEOs.
August 18: From Obama for America:
President Obama is holding a live strategy meeting on Thursday at 2:30 p.m. Eastern Time for all Organizing for America supporters.
The President will update us on the fight to pass real health insurance reform – what’s happening in D.C. and what’s happening around the country. He’ll lay out our strategy and message going forward and answer questions from supporters like you.
The President wrote to us a few weeks ago to ask us to go the extra mile this month in the fight for health insurance reform. And so far, you’ve stepped up in a big way: Last week, an astounding 60,000 Organizing for America volunteers stopped by representatives’ and senators’ local offices. You told your health care stories to staffers and members of Congress– of losing insurance after getting laid off, of being denied coverage upon finding out about a serious illness. And you thanked those supporting real health insurance reform for all the work they’ve done so far.
But these local office visits were only part of the story. The D.C. media has been trumpeting coverage of town halls disrupted by angry opposition to reform. But the reality on the ground is very different. Organizing for America supporters are showing up in huge numbers at these meetings all across the country – outnumbering opponents of reform, often by overwhelming margins.
But the special interests and partisan attack groups who oppose reform will not let up, and they will tell whatever lies they can to spread fear.
August 19: From 21st Century Democrats:
Have you been watching insurance companies hijack health care reform with misinformation and stall tactics? We can’t allow this. We have to hold them and their Republican cronies accountable.
This year, of the top 10 PACs, only 21st Century Democrats is fighting to pass real health care reform including a public option. The other, right wing PACs are just trying to put money into the pockets of the health insurance lobby.
We need your help to let Democrats know we want real reform. The Democrats we support must be confident we’ll have their backs when the insurance companies and Republicans come after them.
August 20: From MoveOn:
The public health insurance option is the heart of health care reform and right now it’s under serious attack.
Even some members of the administration are pushing President Obama to give in to conservatives and drop it: one senior White House adviser told The Washington Post, “I don’t understand how [the public option] has become the measure of whether what we achieve is health-care reform.”
This unnamed source apparently doesn’t understand that the public option is the key to lowering health care costs and expanding coverage.
And even though some White House advisers seem to have forgotten, the reason the public option has become central to reform is simple: we’re fed up with the insurance companies and we need real accountability for them. They’ve had decades to fix the problems with our health care system, but they haven’t done it. Health care costs are spiraling out of control, millions of people can’t get insurance, and even those of us with insurance can face bankruptcy or worse if we get really sick.
A public option will give Americans a real choice when it comes to our health care. It’ll end the insurance companies’ stranglehold on our health care system. And that’s exactly why those companies, and their allies on Capitol Hill, are fighting so hard to kill it.
August 22: From Organizing for America:
On Thursday, an astounding 280,000 Organizing for America supporters gathered online to huddle with the President at our National Health Care Forum. With Congress about to return to Washington to make historic decisions on health insurance reform, the President chose this critical moment to speak directly to the OFA community. He reminded us of how far we’ve come and what we can accomplish together.
Posted on August 25, 2009