Playing Health Care Reform Straight

Playing it straight

To members of Progressive Democrats of America

Conor Boylan November 13 at 9:17pm Reply

House Healthcare Measure Undeserving of Progressive Cheerleading

Hi,

With the passage of HR3962, fundraising emails from Democratic groups cheering the passage of the House healthcare bill have been issued faster than denials for service from healthcare corporations. Disappointingly, MoveOn, True Majority and Democracy for America are among them. They’re not just cheering, they’re exalting the bill’s public option as the best thing since sliced bread, despite the further degradation of women’s reproductive rights.

There is no doubt that these organizations have done great work on progressive issues, but on this legislation they are wrong. This bill is, so far, a very bad bill that will further enmesh corporations into our government and our daily lives without addressing the problem. It diminishes all of our rights, not just reproductive ones, by failing to recognize healthcare as a human right, not a commodity to be traded on Wall Street.

The measure’s public option, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), will only attract 6 million out of the 45 million uninsured Americans, and the monthly premium will likely be more costly than corporate premiums. So much for affordable healthcare.

And, it does next to nothing to help Americans who are now being gouged by healthcare corporations. “if you like your insurance--you get to keep it” has morphed into “if you have insurance, you have to keep it whether you like it or not, and if you don’t have it--you have to buy it.”

Together with our allies, we kept single-payer healthcare alive much longer than anyone thought possible, which demonstrates its majority support. We never wavered, we never strayed from our goal, we made tangible progress--please help us carry on https://www.thedatabank.com/dpg/309/donate.asp?formid=donate

Just because a massive bill manages to include a few sensible measures that should have been enacted years ago, a mandate that we all buy a defective product to swell the profit margins of the very corporations who created this crisis in the first place does not make it reform, or acceptable. It certainly does not make it the much-ballyhooed achievement of the 21st century.

MoveOn’s email targeting any Democrat who voted against the House bill is unacceptable, as well. While there’s value in targeting Democrats who do not support the solution to the crisis, Medicare for All, there’s no value in targeting the two brave souls who actually exercised their backbones and voted against the bill for the right reasons--Congressmen Kucinich and Massa. This bill is a band-aid at best, not the scalpel needed to excise the cancer of for-profit, employer-based corporate healthcare insurance, which kills tens of thousands of Americans a year. Please take a moment to thank these courageous progressives http://capwiz.com/pdamerica/issues/alert/?alertid=14323226

MoveOn’s most recent mailing will raise hundreds of thousands of dollars to support incumbents who voted for this bad bill. We hope to raise tens of thousands of dollars to back only candidates who support Medicare for All and women’s reproductive rights.

Help us keep agitating, educating, and acting to secure this human right—instead of supporting “progressive organizations” that support halfway measures, which won’t do the job. Please become a PDA Change makes Change partner http://pdamerica.org/articles/misc/2008-01-24-01-07-46-misc.php

You can contribute as little as $5, $10, or $15 a month. There are additional benefits to investing in PDA; when you become a sustaining partner, we stop sending you regular fundraising letters, for one. One-time contributions are welcome, too. http://pdamerica.org/articles/misc/2008-01-24-01-07-46-misc.php

The fight isn’t over as long as we continue to demand Medicare for All:

* Take action for Sanders single-payer bill in the Senate http://capwiz.com/pdamerica/issues/alert/?alertid=14212486
* Add the Kucinich amendment during the reconciliation process.
* Establish single-payer systems in the states while we continue to push for Medicare for All.

In solidarity,

Tim Carpenter for the PDA National Team

P.S. Read this article by Rose Ann DeMoro of the California Nurses Association, which details the bill’s few positive and many negative aspects http://pdamerica.org/articles/alliances/2009-11-10-01-39-56-alliances.php . See also Dr. Marcia Angell’s article http://pdamerica.org/articles/news/2009-11-10-01-13-16-news.php .

P.P.S. Due to the healthcare debate and the upcoming holidays, PDA has moved the launch of the Brown Bag Lunch Vigils to January. We’ll maintain a pilot program among several chapters who will begin their vigils next Wednesday, November 18, and will keep you informed of developments.