Guaranteed Healthcare

By Donna Smith

It’s about now that the campaign ads start to annoy beyond belief – especially in this year of the nasty, selfish and supposedly self-made, conservative woman candidate.  They may not know it, but compassion is strength.  It’s easy to be selfish and self-absorbed but it takes a real woman to show compassion in times of challenge in relationships, in communities and in our nation, and then back it up with action.  So far, the candidates calling themselves “Mama Grizzlies” want to brand themselves as tough enough to throw the weak and the suffering to the curb in order to display appropriate conservative credentials. 

This might someday be known as the year of the ugly, self-absorbed, anti-family, pro-corporate profits female candidate.  Sad to see when we all know so many wonderful and balanced women are out there and fully capable of serving.

A group of providers and parents gathered in Reno, Nevada, today to discuss the remarks U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle made about autism and people with autism and people who try to serve people who have autism.  In keeping with her arrogant brand of elitist conservatism, Angle believes that the law so hard fought to win in Nevada, AB162, which provides mandated coverage of treatment for those with autism is just a cover, a ploy for those who would develop, as she puts it, cottage industries to benefit from providing autism treatment to people who may have been inappropriately diagnosed – purposely to bilk the system – with autism. 

By Donna Smith

When you see the faces of the members of PASNAP (Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals) on strike at Temple University Hospital and perhaps most especially when you see the faces of their children walking on the picket line with them, you embrace the reality of why these brave RNs and other health professionals were compelled to strike.  This strike is about providing the best possible care for the patients at Temple and doing so in a way that is supported by the health professionals who have given decades of service to the community and to the institution. (story and ACTION item continued next page)

Undaunted: Movement for Improved Medicare for All Grows in Illinois and Across the Nation

By Donna Smith

Just blocks from President Obama's Hyde Park home south of the Loop in Chicago, more than 70 activists gathered on Saturday, March 27, 2010, to plan strategy for advancing an improved and expanded Medicare for all system as the law of the land.  Activists across the nation are undaunted by the passage of the current health reform bill as they know that mandating the purchase of private insurance is not the same as providing access to healthcare.

Joining the activists from throughout Illinois was Illinois State Representative Mary Flowers, chief sponsor of Illinois' single-payer health reform bill HB311, seen in the photo on the left.

By sharing their successes in advancing the Medicare for all, single-payer position, the activists spent eight hours together, broke into issue panels and came away with the formation of four task forces to explore the most effective and strategic ways to move the movement in Illinois both in terms of state legislative energy and as part of a larger national movement.