Progressive Democrats Sonoma County

SONOMA COUNTY PDA’ers — Celebrate PDA’s 5th Birthday Anniversary! — July 31 — Click Here for Details ___________________________________________

Senator Barbara Boxer: YES on $106 billion Iraq supplemental… ...and NO co-sponsorship of Single-Payer Health Care Senate Bill S. 703?

Senator Boxer, we need to talk .

Join PDA on July 9 & 10th for a California Healthcare Not Warfare Action.

Warfare — Sen. Barbara Boxer cast a YES vote on the $106 billion Iraq-Afghan occupation funding on May 21st – a bad vote from normally stalwart progressive, which frustrates & dispirits the anti-war movement.

Healthcare — Boxer has NOT YET co-sponsored Bernie Sanders single-payer bill in the Senate, S. 703.
Given our progressive dismay with Boxer’s disastrous war-funding vote, we are asking Sen. Boxer to redeem some lost standing with a STRONG stance on single-payer healthcare — to co-sponsor S.703 to guarantee health care coverage for ALL.

Demand Healthcare NOT Warfare — Four easy ways to help:

Reforming the dysfunctional U.S. healthcare system is a major issue in the news these days. The goal of the reform efforts, we’re told, is to expand coverage to the uninsured and to reduce costs. But what many experts and citizens see as the most sensible solution to these problems is kept out of the discussion by the corporate media.

By Marcy Winograd
PDA Blog
June 30, 2009

Take Action: Tell Congress ‘Let the CBO score HR 676’

One of the many frustrations for advocates of single-payer health care is the relentless drive to marginalize us, not only by conservatives but also by members of our own party.
Case in point …..

Read the Full Story Here

By Russell Mokhiber
Sunday, June 14, 2009

Nick Skala was in a bit of shock.

In early June, he was invited to speak before the Progressive Caucus of the House of Representatives about single payer health care.

There are about 71 members of the House who belong to the Progressive Caucus — about a third of the Democratic Caucus.

Skala is a true believer in single payer — having spent four years with Physicians for a National Health Program.

Altoona, PA The Blair-Bedford Central Labor Council in Altoona, PA has endorsed HR 676, single payer healthcare legislation introduced by Congressman John Conyers (D-MI). The Blair-Bedford Labor Council is the 128 central labor council to endorse HR 676.

Toledo, OH The Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC), which began organizing farm workers in the 1970’s, and is the second largest farm workers union organization in the U.S. has also endorsed the Conyers legislation.

____________

Rep. Raul Grijalva asked us to forward this message to you. Click here to read it.

We’re very proud that Rep. Grijalva is a member of our advisory board, and we appreciate the support he has given to PDA.

Catch him and other notable supporters of PDA in this short video .

Insurance giants panic at the prospect of competition

Now is the time for boldness! Instead, we're getting Baucusness. Sen. Max Baucus, that is--Montana Democrat, chair of the Senate Finance Committee, and frequent spear-carrier for the corporate agenda. He has now been tapped to handle Obama's promised rewrite of America's warped, ineffective, and exorbitantly expensive health-care system.

This should be a dream job for the Democratic leadership. Consumers despise today's corporatized medical structure. So do doctors, nurses, and other health-care workers. So do businesses that provide health-care coverage for their employees. The insurance-company-dominated system is so unpopular that swine flu enjoys a higher public-approval rating! A Pew Research Center poll taken in March 2009 shows that the American people don't merely want the current system fixed, they want it overhauled--76% say it must either be "fundamentally changed" or "completely rebuilt."

Read the rest of this article at the Hightower Lowdown

by paradocs2
Daily Kos
June 7, 2009

Most people are unaware how similar the major health insurers are to our failed Wall Street firms.They are corporate cash cows and have virtually no fiduciary responsibility and few activities for protecting or improving health or the health care system.They will devote their vast resources to prevent any meaningful health reform. They have controlled Congress and the mainstream media. The only cure is vigorous popular support for a single payer, Medicare for All reform.

By Robert Parry
June 5, 2009

As the health insurance industry and its defenders in Congress lay out their case against permitting a public option in a reform bill, perhaps their most curious argument is that some 119 million Americans are ready to dump their private plans and jump to something more like Medicare – and that’s why the choice can’t be permitted.

Read the Full Story Here

On June 6, supporters of healthcare reform will be gathering all around the country at the Organizing for America (OFA) Kickoff meetings.

Find an event near you!

Take PDA Healthcare NOT Warfare flyers with you when you attend. You can download them here to print them out.

If you are able to attend share with us any details about the meeting HERE

Link to Original

Thousands of Americans turn out to support single-payer healthcare!

Reports from the single-payer events, which took place on May 30 and the days leading up to it, are still rolling in, but we couldn’t wait to share the news with you. Read about the events in Seattle and Tacoma, Ohio, Rochester and Indiana . We’ll be posting more and invite you to send us your story , as well.

One thing is clear: more and more people are turning out in support of single-payer healthcare at rallies, marches, and forums—big and small . Pat yourself on the back! We’re seeing the fruits of our labor playing out in communities across the country.

At a critical moment for health care reform in the United States, The National Economic & Social Rights Initiative has published an in-depth assessment of single payer proposals, finding that a single payer system goes further towards meeting key human rights principles than market-based plans.

The question of whether national leaders will consider a single payer system as an option for health care reform has become a question of basic democracy. Despite most Americans supporting a single payer solution, the Obama Administration and congressional leaders have denied it consideration. Key stakeholders such as health care professionals, patients and single payer advocates have been excluded from hearings regarding health reform, prompting courageous civil disobedience actions by health care advocates.

WASHINGTON – May 27 – As the Obama administration calls for health reform to be done this year, Progressive Democrats of America and other groups and people in support of improved Medicare for all, a single-payer national health system, will take to the streets in nearly fifty cities around May 30. Town hall meetings, protests at insurance companies, rallies in state capitols, and vigils in memory of the 22,000 people who die each year because they lack health insurance will be taking place across the country.

PDA supports HR 676 by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) which would create an expanded Medicare-type system to cover all Americans. The removal of for-profit insurers from providing basic health care would create enough savings, an estimated $400 billion a year, to fund health care to all.

Join thousands of single-payer supporters in a nationwide week of action to support improved Medicare for all (HR 676). Single-payer activists will be gathering all over the country to say, “Healthcare, yes; Insurance companies, no.”

When Saturday, May 30, 2009
10 AM – 12 PM

Where Santa Rosa Veteran’s Memorial Building parking lot
1351 Maple Ave
Santa Rosa, CA 95404

Follow this Link to Find Local Actions: https://www.thedatabank.com/dpg/309/mtglist.asp?formid=meet&eventtypename=May%2030%20Single%20Payer%20Action

Picket Senator Max Baucus
6pm Tues. May 26 in SF

He has been banning discussion of Single Payer in DC

2436 Jackson St – San Francisco

between Steiner and Fillmore in Pacific Heights

Dear Healthcare Activist,

We just found out that Senator Max Baucus of Montana is the featured speaker at a Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee meeting on Tuesday evening.

He has banned discussion of single payer legislation in his Finance Committee hearings. So far, he has had 13 doctors and nurses arrested for trying to bring up a discussion of single payer.

Healthcare NOT Warfare campaign Co-Chair Donna Smith was brilliant on Bill Moyers Journal, last night.

Watch the clip and show Donna some love! Leave your comments in the comments box under the video screen.

After a devastating medical bankruptcy and a role in the movie SiCKO, Donna became a formidable and leading advocate for single-payer healthcare reform. As a community organizer for the California Nurses Association and a co-chair of the Healthcare NOT Warfare campaign, she has traveled the breadth and width of this country to help educate Americans on the single-payer solution.

__________________

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.

On Wednesday, May 13, 2009, a rally was held on Capitol Hill advocating for a Single Payer Healthcare System. I talked with activists Mimi Kennedy and Tim Carpenter about the issue. Ms. Kennedy is an actress, author and a long time champion of progressive causes and also the Chair of the Progressive Democrats of America (PDA); and a proud member of the the Screen Actors Guild (SAG). Mr. Carpenter is the National Director of the Progressive Democrats of America. The spirited event was organized by the California Nurses Assoc/NNOC. The healthcare activists are supporting HR 676 and S 703, now pending before the U.S. Congress.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH VIDEO and get more info

By Helen Thomas
SFGate: Politics Blog
May 13, 2009

Americans can be thankful for two humanitarian presidents whose legacies stand as emblems of caring values that enrich us as a nation.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt won passage of the Social Security Act in 1935 and President Lyndon B. Johnson signed Medicare legislation in 1965.

Social Security and Medicare work beautifully and provide security and medical care to millions of American families, especially now in hard economic times.

Imagine what America would be without.

President Obama should follow the formula of his two predecessors and support a “single payer’‘ health plan, assuring universal health care in this country.

May 12, 2009

We’re hearing from folks in Ohio and New Jersey who have decided to drop everything to drive to Washington for tomorrow’s rally and lobby day for single-payer healthcare. If you’re thinking about it, we encourage you to come and join us. Get the details here.

If you can’t make it, please don’t forget to call your representative tomorrow to let them know you favor single-payer healthcare and ask them to co-sponosr HR 676. Get the details here.

By David Swanson
May 12, 2009

Dr. Margaret Flowers, who was arrested along with seven others at the first Senate Finance Committee hearing on healthcare, just phoned me from the second one. As Chairman Max Baucus called the hearing to order, about 20 members of the California Nurses Association (CNA) stood and turned their backs on the committee. Pasted on their backs were signs reading: “Nurses Say: Patients First,” “Stop AHIP,” (referring to health insurance lobbyists), “Pass Single Payer.”

Want single payer universal healthcare? Don’t try to bring it up in the Senate.

Health care activists disrupted a Senate Finance Committee hearing Tuesday, standing up one after the other as Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) tried to restore order.

As soon as police escorted one protester out of the room, another would stand up, criticizing the committee for convening a panel of 15 experts and excluding witnesses who support creating a Medicare system for all Americans. About eight were led out of the hearing.

Baucus’ response? “We need more police.”

A video of the protest appears below.

Read the Full Story Here

Hearing on “Expanding Health Care Coverage”
Senate Committee on Finance
May 5, 2009

This hearing represents the the framework of reform that is being crafted behind closed doors. The tragedy is that any bill that results from this process will delay further the reform that we desperately need. In the meantime, tens of millions or more will face unnecessary physical suffering and financial hardship, and many will die.

The epitaph: BUT MY VIEWS WERE RESPECTED

Read the Full Story Here

April 29, 2009

Kay Tillow, Coordinator of the All Unions Committee for Single Payer Health Care—HR 676, welcomed the effort by these state legislators and urged everyone to contact their own state senator and representative and ask them to sign the Appeal.

A group of state legislators has initiated a nationwide effort to publish an Appeal to President Obama and members of the 111th Congress to support HR 676, single payer healthcare legislation introduced in Congress by Representative John Conyers, Jr. and 75 co-sponsors.

Twenty four state legislators, from 16 states, have sent a copy of the appeal to all 7,500 state legislators in the United States asking them to add their names to the appeal which will be published in Roll Call, a widely read Capitol Hill publication.