Guaranteed Healthcare

Out of Iowa comes two great pieces of news for those of us who want the Democratic presidential candidates to get serious on healthcare: a new series of television ads is launching today by a group of activist nurses and doctors, and labor is endorsing guaranteed healthcare on the single-payer model.

The ads: The National Nurses Organizing Committee and Physicians for a National Health Program are launching a series of TV ads throughout the state starting today, timed to coincide with the Iowa appearance of the Democratic Presidential candidates in several forums this week, culminating in a joint appearance Sunday on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos.  The ads in turn focus on Edwards, Clinton, and Obama.

In the first ad, which begins running this morning, a cardboard stand-in for former Sen. John Edwards is asked "Why are we wasting thirty-one cents out of every healthcare dollar on administrative expenses?" by a small businessman. "Eliminate the middleman, make our businesses more competitive globally, and this country could afford healthcare for everyone.” 
 
"We need real reform that cuts out the profiteering insurance companies and drug companies and creates a single-payer program guaranteeing healthcare for ALL Americans. Where's the leadership on this, Senator Edwards?" the businessman asks. 

The ad calls on viewers to “let the Democratic candidates for president know that real leadership on healthcare doesn’t mean just being better than the Republicans.”

Created by guru Bill Hillsman and North Woods Advertising, the ad can be seen on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNJTxRf6x3Q .

Secondly, the Iowa AFL-CIO passed a resolution submitted by the Southern Iowa CLC and Hawkeye CLC endorsing HR 676.

The resolved reads:  "That the fifty-first Convention of the Iowa Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, hereby endorses HR 676, which would create a comprehensive single payer health care system in the US, by expanding a greatly improved Medicare system to every resident of the United States."

Do not underestimate the significance of the labor movement in this country increasingly supporting guaranteed healthcare—the system succeeding in every other industrialized democracy.  It means that single-payer healthcare is the *only* proposal with an active constituency supporting it.  Contrast that with  the beleagured Schwarzenegger proposal in California…by attempting to band-aid the current insurance-driven healthcare system, he created a Rube Goldberg contraption with no natural constituency advocating for his proposal.