Guaranteed Healthcare

Chellie Pingree of North Haven, Maine, is the mother of three grown children, and she is a grandmother.  She is also a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives from the 1^st Congressional District in Maine.  She is firmly in support of single payer healthcare reform through HR676, the National Health Insurance Act. 

“When my brother Bob was diagnosed with cancer at age 39, he had to fight two battles - the cancer and the insurance companies. He died 14 months later with the guilt that his illness brought financial ruin to his young family. Unfortunately, my family wasn't unique and this shouldn't happen to anyone,” Pingree shared.

Chellie is a Democrat and she supports H.R. 676, the National Healthy Insurance Act, sponsored by Representative John Conyers, D-MI. She explained, “H.R. 676 is a proposal for a single-payer health care system in America. By bringing all people under one roof of coverage, costs go down as we benefit from system efficiencies and economies of scale. When that one roof doesn't take a profit, costs are even lower.”

She's not your average, politically connected candidate, and she has unconventional, bold ideas for the people of her district and for the nation.  Among the issues most critical to Andrea Miller is that of single payer healthcare reform.  She minces no words, pulls no punches and wastes no time letting folks know she's all about the best way to make sure all Americans have healthcare -- through single payer legislation like HR676.

Andrea is the mother of two grown children, and she understands that being a responsible parent means being a responsible citizen as she listens to families in the district talk about everything from economic hardships to energy concerns and beyond.

Though Virgina's 4th Congressional District is currently represented by a conservative Republican, Andrea says, "This race is winnable. From people I've met walking door-to-door to the folks I met at county fairs, people are ready for change."

But along with some momentum from the Obama campaign's efforts to register young voters, Andrea is working hard to reach all the areas of a district that takes two-and-a-half hours to drive end-to-end and is filled with voters as diverse as any district in the nation.

By Donna Smith, American SiCKO, communications specialist, CNA/NNOC 

While ad campaigns rolled out from some groups and the media focused themselves on -- well -- themselves, and their coverage of the presidential race, the champion of single payer healthcare reform rolled out his own plans and moved ever forward in the steady march toward victory.

Rep-John Conyers, chairman of the House Judiciary and primary sponsor of HR676, joined the national Healthcare Not Warfare campaign in seeking national platform status for true reform.  No wiggle, no waffle, no sequential silliness that allows some Americans in while holding others partially out of the plan.  Conyers knows that with 91 co-sponsors already on board and many more in the November election pool, the path to passage of HR676 is much more "politically feasable" than the convoluted and corrupt path to marginal change.

Awesomely simple and exquisitely responsible, single payer offers patients maximum flexibility in seeking quality healthcare, and it offers the nation maximum “bang for the buck” by removing the mark-ups for excessive profit necessary in the current for-profit, private health insurance markets.

The incremental health reform plans are quite convoluted and difficult to follow. Designed to protect all the corporate, for-profit entities currently making money in our system, it is nearly impossible to accomplish universal access to care while maintaining the status quo of our national corporate healthcare system.

Steady as we go, single payer friends, Conyers and his cohorts always remind us that our cause is just, the path is clear and we can win true, universal care for every American.  

I am blessed to be one of the four national co-chairs of this PDA campaign, along with Conyers, Soloman and Marilyn Clement of Healthcare-Now.  Read the attached article and jump in with us.

Sign on to this effort and spread the good word.  Single payer reform is on the agenda.

Check out this video I shot at the Yearly KOS Convention in Chicago where I interviewed random bloggers about the need for HR 676 (Conyers) - SINGLE PAYER Healthcare for everyone in America. I blogged from the convention last week about the workshops I attended, how diversity had dramatically increased from the first Yearly KOS in Vegas, and how healthcare relates to cultural diversity, video production, and union organizing.