Guaranteed Healthcare

Some patient stories just fill me with anger and shame.  This one -- from Iowa -- is one of those stories.  By now, we all know the plot.  Patient has insurance.  Patient gets sick.  Patient cannot afford to keep insurance or find insurance that will cover illness.  Patient goes without coverage.  Providers demand up-front payment for cancer care.  Patient calls on friends, family and community to help.  Patient grovels.  Cancer spreads.  Patient grovels.

Ah, the mid-western values.  This is Iowa.  My mom was born in Boone during the Great Depression.  Iowa is the place many think of when we think of those salt-of-the-earth, kind and hard-working Americans with traditional, perhaps even faith-based values.  A kind and gentle place with a no-nonsense work-ethic.  Iowa.  Fields of farmers' dreams and the stuff of mid-America at its finest.

So, why in Iowa should we allow Deb, (continued below)

By Donna Smith

So, all the great fanfare and all the king’s horses.  The great and almighty U.S. Senate has spoken.  I will have to buy private health insurance – forever, amen.  The defective product that has left me wanting for real healthcare for all of my adult life is now a step closer to being the law of the land.

A lump of Christmas coal all polished up with sparkling rhetoric. 

Here’s what the Chicago Tribune said this week, and I agree: 

Marilyn Clement,  June 30, 1935 – August 3, 2009

By Donna Smith

August 3, 2009 – Marilyn Clement, national coordinator for Healthcare-NOW, died this morning.  We mourn her loss.  She was an organizer for the ages, a friend, a mentor, and as of today, an angel.

Behind she leaves legions of single-payer healthcare activists who may not even know her name or her background or her struggle but who carry with them her passion for a just world where every human life is valued and protected and honored no matter his or her station in life, gender, color of skin, or name recognition potential.  In a world gone mad for celebrity and status, Marilyn was a woman of peace and compassion for all.

I first met Marilyn when SiCKO premiered in New York City.  Then just weeks later when I introduced the film to audiences at the Atlanta Social Forum, it was Marilyn who took me across town to a hotel room where Laura Flanders had set up a radio studio to broadcast all the action at the event.  Marilyn brought me to be on the radio show with her – and with Atlanta’s Dr. Henry Kahn.   Diane Shamis of Progressive Democrats of America will recall that interview too.

By Donna Smith

Wow.  America’s Health insurance Plan’s  (AHIP) czar -- and the woman our Congress and president have anointed as the nation’s architect of health reform -- has offered a gift to all of America’s moms and women.  The health insurance industry will stop charging you more – they’ll stop discriminating against you – so long as all of you are legally forced to buy their product.

It sounds to me a little like the old saw, “When did you stop beating your wife?” But then when I really thought about it, it made me sicker and sadder and more acutely aware of exactly what this nation’s leaders think of all of the mothers and daughters in the land this Mother’s Day 2009.

It's time to keep single payer healthcare reform front and center for our Congressional members as they take their spring recess.  Watch the video and see our single payer friends in Chicago as they rally in solidarity with those who rallied in Los Angeles on April 6 to see that our leaders stop excluding single payer from the discussion on health reform. 

APRIL 15th -- Tax Day -- time to call Congress 

Now it's time for our April monthly national call-in day.  So join with other members of the Leadership Conference on Guaranteed Health Care and add your voice to the call for healthcare justice.

On Wednesday, April 15th, the LCGHC is launching our fifth nationwide call-in day for single-payer national health care. Our message is clear: "Tax payer dollars should go to people, not profits. Support single-payer national health care now."

Lesser reform proposals will have our taxes subsidizing insurance company profits, not paying for real health care. We must fix our health care system by putting everybody in, and removing for-profit interests that are responsible for the sky-rocketing cost of health care. The only plan that meets these criteria is a single-payer national health care system.

So on April 15th, 2009, we ask that you join with thousands of others to call Congress, to support single-payer legislation in both the House (HR 676) and the Senate (S703).

If you don't know your Congresspersons, or want a script, all of the information you need is on our National Call-In Day page - http://www.healthcare-now.org/campaigns/call/

*If you cannot make phone calls, information for your US Representatives and Senators can be found at www.votesmart.org

If you know your Representative and Senators, the Capitol Switchboard number is 866-338-1015*. Ask to be connected, and then ask him or her to support HR 676 or S703. If they are already a co-sponsor, thank them.

The injustice in our healthcare system must end. If our Congress is serious about health reform, they will support single-payer health care now.

Despite presidential forums, committee hearings and advertising campaigns, we're no closer to meaningful reform measures that would meet human rights standards and fulfill our human right to health care.  To hold health care reformers accountable for delivering universal, equitable health care that meets human rights standards, the Human Right to Health Program, run by the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative (NESRI) and the National Health Law Program (NHeLP), has published ten principles for financing health care. Go to http://ww.nesri.org/ or download directly http://www.nesri.org/Human_Rights_Principles_for_Financing_Health_Care.pdf

Hours after President Obama's speech to Congress in which he laid down a marker for achieving "comprehensive" healthcare reform, and getting it done this year, top administration aides have outlined the goals of what they want to achieve.

What Politico called "the 8 keys to his health plan,"  certainly reflect a bold determination for action and a grand vision.

There's only one problem. Virtually all the proposals being bandied about in various Congressional committees -- and the administration made it clear this week they will let Congress figure out the details -- fail to meet the test of those "8 keys."

By Donna Smith

WASHINGTON, DC – Imagine my joy in hearing Sen. Tom Daschle say during one of his confirmation hearings for his appointment as President Obama's Secretary of Health and Human Services that he supports reforming the healthcare system without being wedded to any strict ideology.  Great, I thought, finally a health reform leader without allegiance to the dogma of the free market which would squelch any discussion of public options for reform except of course the infusion of public cash into those private markets to make them even more profitable. 

Finally.   Yes, Sen. Daschle, let’s get the big boys of free market dogma to stand down.

But then came Tuesday and the inauguration and the marvelous celebrations that followed.  It was truly a glorious moment in time for millions of us.  So watching this transition is exciting and a relief from the trauma of the past eight years.  Even seeing the White House website quickly reflect the new era of openness and transparency in government seemed wonderful.

So, I quickly clicked my way to the healthcare agenda and read with interest the plan for reform.  It isn’t free of ideology, that’s for sure.  It takes a direct hit at “government run” systems and even uses the old, worn scare tactic of “higher taxes” as a way to try to crush even the idea that a publicly funded system is in the offing.  That's not so very transparent or honest.

I am an advocate of a publicly funded, privately delivered healthcare reform plan.  I’d like to see us use the best and most responsible funding mechanism but retain the private doctors and providers I like to be able to choose.  I really hate it that when I want to go to the doctor in the current system, I first have to worry about huge co-pays and deductibles in addition to my premiums and then still see providers pre-selected by an insurance company and not necessarily by me.  There isn’t much choice in that for me.

I read deeper into the Obama-Daschle plan and picked up plenty of deep-seated ideology rooted in making this healthcare system sing for the big boys of insurance and health industry – but not so much for you and me, the patients – and frighteningly enough perhaps the most unfavorably handled group under this plan will be those who need care the most.

President-elect Obama's transition team says they want to hear from us on healthcare.  So, the time has come to rise up and speak up as never before.  Let's contribute the single payer -- publicly funded, privately delivered -- healthcare message loud and clear. 

Go to the change.gov site to sign up and host a health care community discussion.

http://change.gov/page/s/hcdiscussion

If we're going to have a seat at the discussion table, we're going to have to invite our friends, neighbors and family, set the table and serve up the best option for this nation's healthcare mess --

Doctors, Nurses, Med Students and Patients Join Government and Business Leaders

Calling for Single Payer Reform in Pennsylvania and the Nation

By Donna Smith, community organizer

LANCASTER, PA  -- I haven't seen Dr. Walter Tsou of PNHP (Physicians for a National Health Program)  as much as I would like to since a sweltering June day last year when he welcomed the huge SiCKO bus into Philadelphia.  It isn't that both he and I haven't been out talking about single payer healthcare reform, but we don't often get the opportunity to be in the same place at the same time -- until tonight.

We both were panelists for a forum entitled: Single-Payer, Guaranteed Healthcare for All, A Mainstream Solution.  We were at the historic Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, and we were joined by medical students, doctors, nurses, business leaders and legislators. 

This was a powerful bunch of people -- each told a piece of the picture of a broken system and of the single payer solution.  And this is one lobby group I'd match against any in tenacity, intelligence and just plain humanity.  As each spoke, it was clear that respect and passion are hallmarks of this movement.  You cannot buy that sort of lobby effort -- it rises up from the heart and soul of decent Americans fed up with what we know can be so much better.