Stand Up! Take Action! Vote!
Learn the Cost of War to Sonoma County. And see what this $$$ could have been spent on instead — what are the trade-offs?
CLICK HERE
Take Action: Attend the monthly Sonoma Co. PDA Brown Bag Lunch Vigil at Rep. Lynn Woolsey’s Santa Rosa office.
CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE AND JOIN THE BBLV
August’s Healthcare for All/Single Payer Issue Organizing Team conference call welcomed Healthcare NOT Warfare co-chair Donna Smith into the role of the coordinator for this IOT. In addition to facilitating the call, Donna spoke in detail about the many actions recognizing the 75th anniversary of Social Security. She also addressed the attacks on Social Security and Medicare funding from the administration and the Congress, as specious and misrepresented methods of reducing the federal budget deficit.
California Political Desk
June 30, 2010, Sacramento, CA
Published by California Chronicle
The Assembly Health Committee today approved the California Universal Health Care Act, authored by Senator Mark Leno (D-San Francisco). The bill guarantees all Californians comprehensive, universal health care while containing ballooning health care costs and improving the quality of care and delivery of health services statewide.
“Our state is being bankrupted by out-of-control health care costs, and small businesses and families are struggling to pay premiums that rise as much as 40% every year,” said Senator Leno. “California´s single payer plan remains the gold standard for health care reform, and is the only proposal that will truly contain health care spending and provide universal coverage for all.”
1) HNW co-chair, Donna Smith,upated us on the Declaration of
Health Independence and talked about some upcoming events including the Washington, DC Brown Bag Lunch Vigil.
2) Katie Robbins from Healthcare-NOW! joined us to talk about
plans for the upcoming US Social Forum.
3) Eve of Brown Bag Lunch Vigil updates.
4) State Medicare for All updates.
With $2 BILLION in Sonoma County taxes going to pay for the wars in Iraq & Afghanistan, participating in a monthly Brown Bag Lunch Vigil to stop the escalation and funding for wars is an act of community support.
— photo by Michael Aparicio
Now that health insurance reform has become law, PDA is taking the fight for Medicare for All single-payer health insurance to the states. In this episode, Tim Carpenter interviews Chuck Pennacchio, Healthcare4AllPA Director and Ben Day, MassCare Director about the single-payer efforts in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. Produced by David Pakman of Midweek Politics http://www.midweekpolitics.com/
National Nurses United/California Nurses Association
June 11, 2010
Join PDA’s Healthcare for All Issue Organizing Team (IOT); learn more here .
Published by California Nurses Association
The 155,000 Registered Nurses of National Nurses United (NNU) today salute and honor their brave colleagues of the Minnesota Nurses Association (MNA) for their historic decision to stage a major strike in defense of the patient care and safety standards at their hospitals.
Remembering. Learning. Changing the Reality.
Healthcare NOT Warfare
“If other eyes grow dull, other hands slack, and other hearts cold in the solemn trust, ours shall keep it well as long as the light and warmth of life remain to us.” Gen. John Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic wrote in his general orders prior to the first observance of Memorial Day on May 30, 1868.
Are the words above any less true if spoken about the struggle to stop funding more war, or for healthcare for all, than when spoken about the sacrifice and courage of soldiers? This Memorial Day, let’s pause to recall all of the heroes who fight with every ounce of energy and often with tremendous human suffering to end the great injustices of our day.
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It was like Grand Central Station in Washington, D.C., last week when PDA teams of citizen-lobbyists took to three different tracks on Capitol Hill.
The Stop Global Warming/Environmental Issues Organizing Team has been focusing most of its energy on passing a good climate/energy bill, which actually addresses the problem. Frustrated by the many flaws in the bills under serious consideration, this IOT decided it was time to start the push for Plan B—the carbon tax with revenue returned to households.
Saturday, May 15 – Luther Burbank Rose Parade
JOIN US! — PDSonoma will march in the Single Payer Healthcare contingent behind Mark Leno, State Senator, representing south Sonoma County as well as Marin and San Francisco. Senator Leno is a principal co-author of SB 810, our single payer bill in California.
The parade starts at 10 a.m. at Sonoma Ave and E Street. Our group should meet on E Street south of Sonoma Ave. at 9.
Bring signs for universal health care, single payer, HCA-CA, and/or SBB 810.
We will have a few extra Medicare For All signs if you need to just show up!
Sponsored by Health Care for All-California , Progressive Democrats Sonoma County and the Sonoma County Democratic Central Committee. Please call Mike Smith, 707.299.0866, or Sue Snow, 707.823.1635 for further information.
April’s Healthcare for All call focused more intensely than usual on the actions PDA members and all supporters of Medicare for All can take individually and as a group.
Norman Solomon
April 21, 2010
This is a grim story about the care and feeding of a Blue Dog.
Right now, Congresswoman Jane Harman is facing a serious primary challenge from a genuine progressive, Marcy Winograd, in Southern California’s 36th congressional district.
Last Saturday afternoon (April 17), I sat on stage with both candidates and other panelists at a forum during the California Democratic Party convention in Los Angeles. The room was filled with several hundred progressive delegates.
Harman has been refusing to debate her opponent, but she couldn’t stay away from the forum that afternoon. The entire convention would be voting the next day on whether to withhold endorsement of her for re-election.
Saturday’s March and Rally will be a perfect place to distribute PDA Healthcare Not Warfare and Brown Bag Lunch Vigil flyers.
Available Here:
http://pdamerica.org/pdacms/sites/default/files/HNW_-_1-15-10.pdf
http://pdamerica.org/pdacms/sites/default/files/BBLV-%201-15-10_1.pdf
Laura Bonham
March 17, 2010
Kucinich: “Not the Bill I Wanted to Vote for”
Today, Dennis Kucinich announced in a Washington DC press conference that he will vote YES for the healthcare bill. For weeks, Democratic leadership have been pressuring Kucinich to change his vote. Kucinich had been seeking insertion of an ERISA waiver, to begin immediately, for states pursuing Medicare-for-all plans. The waiver was stripped from the bll before it passed the House in November. Several states including California, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Ohio are working to institute Medicare-for-all type healthcare plans.
No one can say the healthcare reform battle has not been an interesting one—it has definitely been a disappointing one for those of us who support the most efficient and effective option—Medicare-for-all.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, March 15, 2010
UPDATE: Since press release, BBLV have increaed to 89!
Labor and advocacy groups organized “brown bag” lunch vigils against war funding in 22 congressional districts in January and 67 in February. Currently 82 are planned for March 17th, with more being added. Organizations participating include: Progressive Democrats of America (PDA), AfterDowningStreet, the Backbone Campaign, Democrats.com, the California Nurses Association / National Nurses Organizing Committee, Healthcare Now, CodePINK, and United for Peace and Justice.
On March 10th, 65 members of Congress voted to end the occupation of Afghanistan. Yet only 14 have publicly committed to voting No on funding the same war. A $33 billion supplemental spending bill for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq is expected to be voted on in April or May. Brownbaggers are asking members of the House to publicly commit to voting No on any bills that fund wars, and to publicly urge their colleagues and the House leadership to make the same commitment. As lesser steps in the same direction, the Brown Bag Vigils are encouraging congress members to cosponsor HR 2454, calling for an exit strategy from Afghanistan, and HR 3699, prohibiting any increase in the number of U.S. Armed Forces in Afghanistan. Congress members’ commitments are tracked at http://defundwar.org .
Vigil participants, who support a shift in resources from warfare to healthcare, are also asking their representatives to join the growing movement calling for “Medicare for All” by demanding passage of the Kucinich amendment facilitating state-level single-payer healthcare and by offering their support to single-payer efforts moving forward in state legislatures, including in California, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Maine, Minnesota, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.
March 9, 2010
We highly encourage signing up for a PDA Issue Organizing Team (IOT) if you wish to actively engage in the work of PDA and PDSonoma County. If you have not already done so, you can get started by clicking on ‘Committees’ on the menu at the top of this website page and there you can:
**sign up for a PDA Issue Organizing Team via the PDA website and
**find the name and contact information for the local PDSonoma chapter team leader for that IOT. If you have not already done so, let that person know that you have signed up for the PDA IOT and they can add you to their local chapter list of activists on that particular issue.
Elliott Gould warns us not to believe the myths about single payer health care. “Single payer is no more socialized medicine than the police department is socialized crime fighting,” he says. California OneCare is publicly financed, privately delivered health care, and poll after poll has shown
This IOT conference call had its usual stellar lineup of guests, including last-minute guest Rep. Dennis Kucinich.
PDA Conference Call Guests: David Swanson, Cole Harrison of UFPJ, PDA Field Director Conor Boylan,
Brown Bag Lunch Vigils (BBLV) partner David Swanson started the call off with comments on and advice for the BBLVs, to move the vigils to a higher degree of action, and he spoke about the legislation to halt Afghanistan funding.
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN & to read more
Join PDA’s End War & Occupations, Redirect Funding Issue Organizing Team (IOT); learn more here.
Senator Mark Leno, author of Senate Bill 810, says that it’s time for Californians to be innovators once again. We can become the first state to enact a publicly funded, privately delivered single payer health care system that will cover everybody and save money.
Dear Single-Payer Supporter:
If you’re in the San Francisco area, please attend this rally for single-payer healthcare.
Medicare for All Rally
Join with activists from the California Physicians Alliance, California Alliance for Retired Americans, Gray Panthers, and Single Payer Now to let President Obama know that we want Medicare for All.
When: Thurs. 10am, Feb. 25
Where: San Francisco Federal Building, 90 7th St., between Market and Mission – Civic Center
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On this call we had -Donna Smith, Healthcare NOT Warfare co-chair, updated us from the Hill on where we stand and also the Brown Bag Lunch Vigil campaign from DC.
Chuck Pennacchio, Executive Director of Healthcare 4 All PA, updated us on single-payer progress in PA.
Ben Day, Executive Director of Mass-Care, updated us on MA.
The BBLV Team updated the group on where the campaign currently stands on the eve of the February BBLVs.
Join PDA’s Healthcare for All Issue Organizing Team (IOT); learn more here
February 22nd 2010. Donna Smith and Norman Solomon discuss Healthcare NOT Warfare and Brown Bag Lunch Vigils
Listen to “Healthcare NOT Warfare” national co-chairs Donna Smith and Norman Solomon in the next installment of Agitator Voices of PDA, a new series of podcasts from Progressive Democrats of America’s. It was a busy week for PDA activists and our allies as we gathered in front of 65 congressional offices for the second Brown Bag Lunch Vigil.
We are an affiliated chapter of Progressive Democrats of America (PDA)
STAY TUNED FOR PROGRAM DETAILS!
PDSonoma meets the 2nd Wednesday of every month except December.
New Members and Guests Always Welcome!
Refreshments can be ordered and enjoyed in our meeting room. Please arrive early if you wish to order refreshments.
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