BigZeroLittleZero

I am passing this along from my cousin Vicky, because I totally agree with her views on this important issue. If you wish to contact your state’s US Congressional representatives or US senators, here is the link: http://www.congress.org/congressorg/home/

Let’s let our President and our state and federal representatives know that healthcare should be a basic right of every American, not a profit center for insurance and pharmaceutical companies.

Thanks, Vicky, for this eloquent message. Please pass this around. This is going to be a critical debate that will impact all of us sooner or later.

tj

Hi. I spent the weekend writing to President Obama, Governor Doyle, and my senators and representatives (state and federal) on the subject of health care reform.    Here’s an excerpt:

Having health care should not be contingent upon a person having a job or being related to someone who has a job.  It should be a basic right of being American, in the same way that education is. Right now, the more people suffer, the more they have to pay.  In essence, we make people suffer twice.
 
The early health insurance companies like Blue Cross were formed to make sure that doctors get paid.  Now they only exist to make sure that executives and stockholders get paid.  This is not right.  It’s inhumane.
 
I am writing to beg you to advance a health care system that puts the welfare of all citizens at the fore.  A single-payer system needs to be our default position.  It needs to include every American in the risk pool, and it needs to be paid for  by taxes, just like public education.  (If some people would like to choose their own health insurance providers, they could pay extra for it, in the same way that people choose to pay extra to send their kids to private schools if they’re unhappy with the public offerings.)  I don’t care if it’s managed federally or on a state-to-state level.  Our system needs to make health insurance available to everyone regardless of ability to pay.  This needs to be a core value of our country – our commitment to providing universal health care is as essential to our nation’s  health, success, and prosperity as is our commitment to education.

Hello, friends, family, fellow citizens:

Right now, everyone seems to know that the US will have big changes in our health insurance system in the near future.
 
Will that system depend entirely on private insurance corporations, or will we have some health insurance available from public sources?
 
It’s important to understand this ‘public option’ debate. Even though the details are not worked out yet, insurance companies are very busy working right now—with more money than you or I will ever have—to make sure the Congress never gives Americans an option of public insurance, like buying into Medicare.  The insurance companies want ALL our health care dollars to be funneled through them; they want to be the ones standing between us and our doctors. The pharmaceutical and hospital industries don’t want anyone to be able to bargain hard on prices.
 
Here is a fact sheet: http://drsforamerica.org/documents/DfA-Public-Health-Insurance-Option-Fact-Sheet.pdf.
 
Here is another short, good article:
 
The healthcare war has officially begun
Will Obama stand up to lobbyists and insurers to give Americans a needed public option?  http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/06/12/reich/index.html
Wednesday <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/11/us/politics/11health.html?hp> the American Medical Association came out against a public option for healthcare. The President has reaffirmed his support for it. The next weeks will show what Obama is made of -- whether he's willing and able to take on the most formidable lobbying coalition he has faced so far on an issue that will define his presidency.

And make no mistake: A public option large enough to have bargaining leverage to drive down drug prices and private-insurance premiums is the defining issue of universal healthcare. It's the only way to make healthcare affordable. It's the only way to prevent Medicare and Medicaid from eating up future federal budgets. An ersatz public option -- whether Kent Conrad's non-profit cooperatives, Olympia Snowe's "trigger," or regulated state-run plans -- won't do squat.

The last president to successfully take on the giant healthcare lobbies was LBJ. He got Medicare and Medicaid enacted because he weighed into the details, twisted congressional arms, threatened and cajoled, drew lines in the sand, and went to war against the AMA and the other giant lobbyists standing in the way. The question now is how much LBJ is in Barack Obama.

The big guns are out and they're firing. All major lobbying firms in Washington -- many of them brimming with ex-members of Congress -- are now crawling all over the Hill. Lots of money is on the table.

·        AMA's political action committee has contributed $9.8 million to congressional candidates since 2000, and its lobbying arm is one of the most formidable on the Hill.

·        Meanwhile, Big Insurance and Big Pharma are increasing their firepower. The five largest private insurers and their trade group America's Health Insurance Plans spent a total of $6.4 million on lobbying in the first quarter of this year, up more than $1 million from the first quarter last year, and are spending even more now.

·        United Health Group spent $1.5 million in the first quarter, up 34 percent from the $1.1 million it spent in the first quarter last year.

·        Aetna spent $809,793 between January and the end of March, up 41 percent from last year.

·        Pfizer, the world's biggest drugmaker, spent more than $6.1 million on lobbying between January and March, more than double what it spent last year. It also spent nearly $3.3 million lobbying in the fourth quarter of 2008.

Every one of them is upping their spending. Some congressional Democrats are willing and able to stand up to this barrage. Many are not. They need cover from the White House.

The President can't do this alone. The next weeks will show what we are made of, too.  You must weigh in and get everyone you know to weigh in, too. Bombard your senators and representatives. Organize and mobilize others. And let the White House know how strongly you feel. This is one of those battles that define a presidency. But more importantly, it's one of those battles that define the state of American democracy.

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The following website makes it easy to identify and contact your legislators: http://www.congress.org/congressorg/home/