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With the Single-Payer Message
As part of our increased pressure campaign on Congress to pass HR 676, The Improved and Expanded Medicare Act, PDA with the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC), Healthcare-Now!, Physicians for a National Health Program, and other member organizations of the Leadership Conference on Guaranteed Healthcare, stormed the barricades in Washington, last week.
While five single-payer activists were arrested on Tuesday, May 12, inside the last Senate Finance Subcommittee on Healthcare hearing, the rest of us were rallying for single-payer healthcare outside the Dirkson Senate Building.
Take Action: Tell your member of Congress, you want Healthcare NOT Warfare .
Wednesday started off with citizen lobbyist training presented by CNA/NNOC. Over one thousand people had gathered by midday, many of them doctors and nurses, for a rally in Upper Senate Park to show their support for HR 676. See PDA Advisory Board Chair Mimi Kennedy’s address to the crowd here . Watch more videos of speakers Sen. Bernie Sanders, Rep. Dennis Kucinich and actor Mike Farrell. From there, the crowd headed off to lobby their representatives to support HR 676.
In addition, PDA was instrumental in organizing meetings on the Hill with friends Reps. John Conyers, Jim McGovern, Donna Edwards and Lynn Woolsey. Exciting new developments include a meeting with House Democratic Leader Rep. Steny Hoyer to keep HR 676 in the forefront when the House takes up healthcare legislation . It was attended by PDA, CNA/NNOC and Reps. Conyers, Edwards, Grijalva, Steve Cohen, and Emanuel Cleaver.
We must keep sustained pressure on Congress while discussions and negotiations on healthcare reform take place. Please send an email to your member of Congress to support HR 676. Then call them, fax them, and stage visibility events for single-payer healthcare reform in your community. Find your representative’s contact info here .
In solidarity,
Tim Carpenter
PDA National Director
P.S. Please join us for the next Healthcare for All Issue Organizing Team Conference Call, Tuesday, May 19. And visit our new healthcare web page, here.
Progressive Democrats of America is a grassroots PAC that works both inside the Democratic Party and outside in movements for peace and justice. Our goal in 2009: Work with and increase the progressive majority in Congress as we build on our 2008 electoral successes. PDA’s advisory board includes seven members of Congress and activist leaders such as Tom Hayden, Medea Benjamin, Thom Hartmann, Jim Hightower, and Rev. Lennox Yearwood.
