Huge Rally TODAY in DC for Health Care. IT's LOBBY DAY --please call or write
Dave
If you can make the time to send an email to your elected officials, today/tonight/asap is an especially good time to send another email. http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml
Obama spoke a lot of common sense in his press conference on Tuesday and said that the opponents of healthcare reform were being illogical in their attempts to have it both ways. If public option is going to be so awful for Americans (as lobbyists try to sell those lies –not to mention purchasing the time/favors/stalling/public-misdirection from politicians to treat those lies as if they were legitimate), then they should have nothing to fear and should be able to just sit back and easily succeed in the open marketplace with their presumed far superior plans.
Even if you’re busy, tired, occupied with a hundred other priorities,
even if you’re presently satisfied with your coverage,
even if you have the fantasy that your employer or insurance carrier will never be changed or go away,
even if you aren’t yet really concerned about healthcare in this country,
even if you have the fortune to not yet personally have experienced healthcare horrors (like finding out that your insurance company will start treating you like persona-non-grata the moment you start to actually need them for yourself/child/spouse, like your mom losing coverage after losing or switching jobs, your grandad’s pension/retirement/healthcare evaporating, your spouse’s employer switching coverage and leaving your family in the lurch, an employer manipulating write-ups because your sister’s cancer has become an inconvenient healthcare expense for them…)…
you, your future, someone you love, your neighbor, your community, your country will be profoundly affected in near infinite ways by whether or not this problem gets addressed right now with this pivotal opportunity.
As Obama put it, even if you’re happy with your healthcare
coverage, you will be affected by this issue.
Your nation, your employer, your fellow citizens can’t afford the path (and
their escalating profits) that the healthcare industry has dragged everyone
into (and is so aggressively spending and fighting to keep your future from
climbing out of that hole).
EVERY hospital has lobbyists working very hard for them (including also doing industry collaboration and pooled funding of an army of uber-lobbyists in DC and in state capitols); please tell your elected officials that you will be giving them a “you’re fired!” notice on election day if they let you down on healthcare and lobbying reforms. Keeping the heat on (and letting them know you aren’t going to stop speaking/writing/paying attention) can be one of the most important gifts you can give this year to our collective future.
Good luck to us all,
Dave
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x8495731
Huge Rally TODAY in DC for Health Care. IT's lOBBY DAY--JUNE25
Edited on Thu Jun-25-09 07:51 AM by sisters6
I hope the media covers it. I think they will.
It's LOBBY DAY ALSO IN DC TODAY:
Help the marchers out by calling up your congresscritters --all of them.
http://healthcare09.org /
............
http://www.laborradio.org/node/11393
Working Families Rally For Health Care Reform In Nation's Capital - AFSCME Says
Public Option is Vital
______________________________________________________________________
http://transgriot.blogspot.com/2009/06/obama-press-conference-on-health-care.html
"A government-run health insurance option is needed "to
discipline insurance companies, …
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/06/23/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry5106591.shtml?tag=contentMain;contentBody
Obama Lauds Public Health Care Option
"I think (a public option) is an important tool to
discipline insurance companies," Mr. Obama said.
…"For us to be able to say, here's a public option that's not
profit-driven, that can keep down administrative costs and provide you with
good quality care, I think that makes sense," he said.
Mr. Obama noted the strong
public support for the public option documented in recent polls.
He also pushed back against the claim, most recently expressed by health
insurance industry groups in a letter
sent to Congress today, that a public option will drive out private
competitors and ultimately leave consumers with fewer choices.
"Why would it drive insurance out of business?" the president asked.
"If private insurers say the marketplace provides the best quality health
care, why is it the government, which they say can't run anything, suddenly is
going to run them out of business? That's not logical."
Mr. Obama said that while the underlying premise of a public option makes
sense, he understood concerns about whether the plan would be heavily
subsidized. "I think that there is a legitimate concern if the public plan
was simply eating off the taxpayer trough that it would be hard for private
insurers to compete," he said.
Still, he said that if the public plan proved able to lower costs for consumers
by reducing administrative costs, private companies should ask whether they
could do the same.
"That's good for everybody in the system, and I don't think there should
be any objection to that," he said. …
From: Dave
[mailto:dave...@kc.rr.com]
Sent: Friday, June 19, 2009 11:13 AM
To: 'Democracy for the Heart of America'; 'GKC...@googlegroups.com';
'Social Responsibility Board';
'building-sustai...@googlegroups.com'
Subject: Reich on Moyers on lobbying and healthcare; and several
healthcare forwards compiled
Below are several emails and forwards (Moyers, Obama, credoaction, True Majority, msnbc, Pitch…) for you to digest and take action as you see fit:
Unfortunately, politicians are susceptible and vulnerable to the 400+ to one ratio of lobbyists to elected officials in DC. It is profoundly sad that the deck has been stacked against officials doing the right thing (no matter how much they may protest that they don’t really get influenced by those special interest contributions to their campaigns --and no matter how the voters may otherwise hope that morality may better guide people in the near-endless slippery slopes in DC). It is sad they somehow ignore or can’t hear the Americans they are supposed to be representing and who have overwhelming indicated their want and need for true reform and paradigm shift in healthcare and campaign finance.
Politicians need to repeatedly hear from you in quantities to drown out the countless daily calls/meetings/drinks/junkets/flights/meals with the lobbyists. The anvil can grow cold all-too-quickly, and this opportunity can tragically slip from America’s collective grasp.
We live in a time where voting is no longer enough (especially with a 95+%? incumbency rate). Right or wrong, pleasant or unpleasant, despite requiring moments of your already preciously limited time, citizens now have the additional duty to keep telling their elected officials what “we’re in it together” service is required for them to do on your behalf to continually keep earning your vote, respect, and trust: http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml
Dave
If you missed this thought provoking interview with Reich:
For full transcript: http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/06122009/transcript4.html
June 12, 2009
…
…ROBERT REICH: Well, we're now just about in the real time of fight and conflict. Republicans and the healthcare lobbies, mostly big pharmaceuticals, their trade associations, also the big insurance companies, private insurance companies, they are bringing out the big guns, the lobbyists, the threats, the promises. They're swarming all over Capitol Hill. …the lobbyists on the other side have so much to lose, they fear, and so much to gain, they expect, if they win.
…
ROBERT REICH: I don't know, Bill. This is the first test where there is huge organized opposition. And it's coming from very, very powerful lobbies who have prevailed-- not just for ten or 15 years. You've prevailed for decades on this issue. So this is the truth time in terms of how able and willing the President and the White House is to really set boundaries and push members of Congress.
So it's at this point-- and I'm talking about the next two or three or four weeks. I mean, we're talking about crunch time right now-- that the President has got to step in and be forceful and be specific. And I don't know whether he will be. I hope he is.
…BILL MOYERS: … So how is it possible for these big lobbies to trump what the public and the President seem to want?
ROBERT REICH: … has hired fleets of lobbyists to take on their competitors.
…
But when you've got that many lobbyists and public relations professionals and lawyers swarming over the Hill for these corporations, they also can come together against the public. And the public's voice can easily be drowned out. You know, even with regard to Wall Street even Democrats are reluctant to take on--
…
ROBERT REICH: Well, they're winning right now because, as these banks come out from under TARP — basically the bailout mechanism — the government has less and less leverage over them with regard to regulations that are going to prevent a repeat of the future. There's still no regulations out there. And there are lobbies. I want to come back to this theme, Bill, because it's important for the public to understand. The lobbies, whether we're talking about healthcare, insurance, pharmaceuticals, or we're talking about the banking system, the lobbies in Washington are enormously powerful.
The only way we're going to have any kind of regulatory regime for the banks that make sense is if people understand what's going on, if they pressure their individual members of Congress if Obama stands up to the banking industry and forces real regulation on them.
…
ROBERT REICH: Healthcare and the public option is the first big one. I think that's a big test. And then the real hard, tough regulation of Wall Street to prevent a repeat of what we've had before. Those are the two big upcoming fights. And, but, you know, Obama can't do it alone.
Even though the presidency has all this power attached to it, only has a limited amount of power if the public is not pushing the president to take certain action and pushing Congress as well. There is no substitute, Bill, for an informed active citizenry.
…
…ROBERT REICH: … the people's representatives reflecting what the public needs, not what the corporations need, you're going to have a system that is not a democracy and it's not democratic capitalism. It's super capitalism without the democracy.
…again and again we learn the lesson and then we forget it.
…
ROBERT REICH: And then Enron and WorldCom in 2001, 2002, we should have learned it then. We don't learn it partly because we forget and partly because the lobbyists are so powerful that they have our representatives around their- a chokehold over them.
…
Other recent Moyers shows on healthcare:
Health Care
Reform: Dr. David Himmelstein & Dr. Sidney Wolfe
…
The U.S. also ranks
highest in total cost of care, but according to a recent report by the
Commonwealth Fund, ranks last among industrialized countries "in
preventing deaths through use of timely and effective medical care." In a
recent FRONTLINE report comparing the health care systems of five other
capitalist democracies, "Sick Around the World," WASHINGTON POST
reporter T.R. Reid notes that, "The World Health Organization says the
U.S. health care system rates 37th in the world in terms of quality and
fairness. All the other rich countries do better than we do, and yet they spend
a heck of a lot less."
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/05222009/transcript1.html
GERI JENKINS: People are fed up with seeing the process hijacked by the insurance industry. So, we have to keep the heat on. We have to keep putting the pressure on them to have the voice of the people heard
DONNA SMITH: Because they've already made a choice. They've already made a choice, I think, to stay with the
moneyed interest, the people who fund the campaigns, the people who fuel the
government system as we know it now. You know, certainly where Senator
Baucus is concerned, he's the third highest recipient of donations from the
health insurance and health care industry in general. The third. The highest
Democratic recipient. And sometimes I feel so strongly that he ought to have to
disclose that at the beginning of every single hearing that he chairs.
BILL MOYERS: But he says, of course, "That doesn't affect my
judgment. This doesn't affect my decision."
DONNA SMITH: I don't think I'd buy that. And I don't think there's very
many people in this country that would buy that. If you have someone who's
giving you money to insure that your position to stay in a very powerful role
in the United States Senate - that's a prime position politically.
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/archives/results.php?topics[]=lobbying
Robert G. Kaiser
Robert G. Kaiser has been following Beltway politics for THE WASHINGTON POST
for nearly 50 years. This week on the Journal, Bill Moyers talks with Kaiser about
his new book, SO DAMN MUCH MONEY: THE TRIUMPH OF LOBBYING AND THE CORROSION OF
AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/02202009/profile.html
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/06132008/campaignfinance.html has links to dozen or so other resources that Moyers recommends (Center for Public Integrity, Follow the Money, Common Cause…).
…
FW: This is why
From: President Barack
Obama [mailto:in...@barackobama.com]
Sent: Tuesday, June 16, 2009 12:59 PM
To: First Name Last Name
Subject: This is why
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First Name --
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Paid for by Organizing for America, a project of the Democratic National Committee -- 430 South Capitol Street SE, Washington, D.C. 20003. This communication is not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee. Monetary contributions to the Democratic National Committee are not tax-deductible. |
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