Guaranteed Healthcare

This is a good day for single payer.

Two champions, Kathy Dahlkemper from the 3rd CD in Pennsylvania and Eric Massa from the 29th CD in New York, won seats in the 111th Congress.

I think it's fair to say that we hope and expect Kathy and Eric will become co-sponsors of HR 676 as soon as they are sworn into office.

During the pre-election bus tour of Northeast swing states in which I was privileged to participate, we swung through the Massa and Dahlkemper districts.

Ms. Dahlkemper scored a huge upset  against the incumbent Representative Phil English in the socially conservative and traditionally Repuglican northwestern corner of Pennsylvania.

Mr. English, a lifelong resident of Erie, has held the Third District seat since 1995 and is a member of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee. Good bye  Good riddance Phil English. Go find yourself a job on K Street.

Ms. Dahlkemper, a co-owner of a family landscaping business, boasted that she was “not a career politician,” and she tied Mr. English to President Bush’s economic policies. Welcome to the movement for guaranteed and affordable healthcare.  We hope you will stand shoulder to shoulder with John Conyers on HR 676.

The bus tour also took us the the 29th Congressional district in New York. It was a good night for Eric Massa, another single payer supporter,  another co-sponsor of HR 676, a veteran and war hero, who took down Randy Kuhl.