Go to our Strategy Conference page to register.

You can download the agenda here (.pdf).

Registration ends on January 21st and you must reserve your hotel room by January 13th to be guaranteed the discounted room rate.

Join single-payer activists from around the country in Houston, TX on January 28th and 29th to help plan our strategy to win guaranteed single-payer national health insurance. The movement needs your input!

We will be discussing how to advance the single-payer agenda in the current political and social environments–in an election year, when Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are under attack, and in the age of Occupy Wall Street, amongst other topics. Download the full agenda.

We hope to see you at the conference!

Vanessa, before becoming our Director of Organizing, joined Healthcare-NOW! in 2005. “Suffering from a chronic illness,” says Vanessa, “I tried hard to find health insurance in the public and private markets, but was always turned down. Meanwhile, I got sicker. I was very angry, and I wanted to find a solution for myself and people like me. I was relieved and heartened when I discovered single-payer healthcare and Healthcare-NOW!–an organization fighting for people like me.”

Vanessa, and many others, have joined the fight for single-payer healthcare, despite passage of health reform, because they know that half-measures will continue to leave out millions like them.

History proves the power of grassroots movements funded by people like you is the only way to win against corporate greed. We need you to continue to support Healthcare-NOW! until we end this injustice.

Make your tax-deductible donation today. Donations of of $20 will receive a Healthcare-NOW! pin and bumper sticker. $50 or more will receive a DVD of The Healthcare Movie or a Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. poster with his famous healthcare quote. And the first 99 people to donate $99 will receive a Single Payer Now t-shirt.

You can make a tax-deductible donation online, or mail a check (made out to IFCO/Healthcare-NOW!) to Healthcare-NOW!, 1315 Spruce Street, Philadelphia, PA 19107.

Recent actions show we make an impact.

In the fall, thousands of you made phone calls and sent emails to the Super Committee, demanding that they NOT cut Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. The Super Committee ultimately failed to make recommendations to cut or privatize these important programs because of the pressure we put on them.

In October and November, hundreds of single-payer activists took part in Occupy Wall Street actions all over the country.

In July, we helped organize more than 45 actions in 21 states for Medicare’s 46th anniversary.

This year, we helped form five new affiliate single-payer groups in four states that previously had none.

Now we’re planning our National Strategy Conference in Houston where our advocates will develop campaigns to challenge corporate power and build the movement for single-payer, national healthcare.

Become a recurring donor. Just $5 or $10 a month will help sustain Healthcare-NOW!’s work through the year. Donate online or call us at 800-453-1305.

Many of our members are facing bankruptcy, homelessness, and financial crisis due to medical debt. Please give what you can and help to support their activism in this renewed period of movement building.

With your support the grassroots movement to end the healthcare crisis in the United States will continue to grow and win.

We need your help planning the strategy for the year ahead. Join single-payer activists and supporters from across the country in Houston, TX so we can build on the successes of the year past and develop concrete plans for the year ahead.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was not a step forward and even that is being dismantled piece-by-piece. We can almost be certain that Medicaid and Medicare will be gouged. The new number of deaths due to lack of access to healthcare is near 100,000 a year. Now more than ever, it is urgent for us to continue organizing for improved Medicare-for-all.

Come to the National Strategy Conference to share your ideas and opinions, brainstorm with friends you haven’t met yet, hear inspiring speakers, and participate in engaging, informative workshops.

When: Saturday, January 28 and Sunday, January 29, 2012
Where: Hilton Houston Hobby Airport, Houston, TX
Time: Sat, 4pm – 9pm, with pre-conference southern hospitality meet & greet 2pm-4pm
Sun, 9am – 5pm
Fee: $40 for members (anyone who has donated in 2011 and/or attended the 2010 Conference in Philadelphia) and $60 for non-members.

Please go here for more information and to register before January 21.

There are two airports in Houston, TX. Please be sure to book your flight to the William P. Hobby Airport in Houston.

Healthcare-NOW! endorses the occupation movement and urges all who can to join them, bringing the message of improved Medicare-for-all as a solution to the crisis of inequality in wealth and in health.

We’re being told by the Super Committee and other politicians that our already too modest safety-net is bankrupting us, but the reality is that Wall Street is bankrupting us. Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare are not the problem. Instead of being cut, they should be maintained and strengthened. Single-payer, improved Medicare for all, like H.R. 676, would save millions of lives and reduce healthcare spending by $400 billion per year.

We need to take the single-payer healthcare message to the occupations, as is happening already in many cities (New York City, Denver, Washington, DC, Philadelphia). We need to make sure that improved Medicare-for-all is on the lists of demands.

Email Vanessa@healthcare-now.org or call 800-453-1305 if you need literature, signs, postcards addressed to Congressmembers, or t-shirts. And we can send emails to Healthcare-NOW! members in your area to help get people out to your events. We’d also love to see your videos and hear news from your local occupations.

Healthcare-NOW! will be there to demand human needs over corporate greed, including life-saving, money-saving improved Medicare for all.

Help us build the single-payer contingent by coming to Freedom Plaza on October 6th. Please email Vanessa@healthcare-NOW.org if you and/or your organization are planning to attend.

The October 2011 movement stands for placing human needs over corporate greed; for stopping the machine and creating a new world. If you want economic justice, human rights, peace, a healthy environment, and an end to corporate criminals’ control of the political process, then you belong in Freedom Plaza on October 6th. Please join us!

If you want to get involved but cannot make it to D.C., check with the organizer in your state to see if a solidarity event is being planned.

Join us at the My Medicaid Matters rally on Wednesday, September 21st at 12 noon in Washington, D.C. (on the west side of Capitol Hill) to voice your opposition to cuts to Medicaid. Detailed information here.

ADAPT, the disability rights organization that helped pass the Americans with Disabilities Act, is calling for people to join them in D.C.. If you can’t make it to D.C., there are solidarity events in California, Kansas, Illinois, Montana, Ohio, and Texas.

If you can make it to the rally in D.C., please let us know by emailing Vanessa@healthcare-now.org. We’d love if you and/or your group joined the single-payer contingent at the rally, and helped us talk to people about the importance of health care as a human right-improving and extending Medicare to all.

Members of the committee claim that “everything is on the table.”

Everything?

The committee will be looking at our most important social insurance programs – Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security – as targets for cuts.

Tell Congress to keep their hands off these vital programs!

Demand the Super Committee prioritize the preservation of Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security and focus on finding a means of balancing the budget that doesn’t harm working families.

We need an improved Medicare-for-all system to guarantee the healthcare we need and get the economy back on track.

Tell your Representative to take Medicare and Medicaid off the table to sign sign on to Rep. John Conyers’ resolution 72.

On July 30th, Medicare turns 46. That’s almost half a century of reducing poverty, increasing health outcomes, and keeping administrative costs below 3%.

Combined with Social Security and Medicaid, more people are able to enjoy hard-earned and well-deserved economic and health security.

If you haven’t yet, help us burn up the phone lines in honor of the anniversary of our most beloved social program: Medicare. Protect it. Improve it. Expand it to all.

We can’t let beltway politics rob us of these important programs. Call NOW at 866-220-0044 to connect to your Representative or Senators. Tell them NOT to accept any cuts to Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid. Instead, improve and expand Medicare for all.

If you don’t know who your elected officials are, click here and we’ll connect you.

In addition to calling our elected officials, you can join up with demonstrations at Congressional offices across the country on Tuesday, July 26th at noon. More information from MoveON here.

And of course Medicare’s Anniversary actions are planned across the country through the end of July.

Calls and in-person actions are most effective right now because of the extreme urgency. However, you can send an email here if calling is not possible.

Medicare’s 46th Anniversary Events

Nationwide – PDA Brown Bag Lunch Vigils – July 20
Albany, NY – July 21
Albany, NY – August 1
Bellingham, WA – July 29
Chicago, IL – July 27
Corvallis, OR – July 30
Fort Collins, CO – July 30
Front Royal, VA – August 2
Gainesville, FL – July 30
Jeffersonville, IN – July 30
Ithaca, NY – August 1
League City, TX – July 23
Lexington, KY – August 10
Louisville, KY – July 27 – 30
Philadelphia, PA – July 29
Pittsburgh, PA – July 29
Portland, OR – July 30
San Diego, CA – July 31
San Francisco, CA – July 30
Seattle, WA – July 30
Stockton, CA – July 29
Syracuse, NY – July 27
Sullivan County, NY – July 29
Utica, NY – July 27
Washington, DC – July 20

July 30th is Medicare’s 46th anniversary, and this marks an important opportunity to highlight how improved Medicare-for-all–not cuts to our vital social insurance programs–is the solution to our health and fiscal crisis.

We asked single-payer supporters to organize events in honor of Medicare’s 46th anniversary and we’re incredibly excited about the response! Events are listed to the right.

Show your support for the protection and expansion of Medicare by attending one or more of the rallies, discussions, and/or meetings.

If you don’t see an event near you, organize your own. We compiled great resources for inspiration and guidance here, including an organizer’s toolkit and a sample flyer.

Email us at katie@healthcare-now.org to let us know about your event. We can send you “Medicare: The Solution, Not the Problem!” signs and postcards addressed to Congress urging them to support Medicare-for-all.

If you can’t organize an event, but still want to support the protection of Medicare this month, you can participate in our “Why I Want Medicare for All” video campaign and mark your calendar for a national call-in day to Congress on Monday, July 25th.

As part of the negotiations to raise the national debt ceiling, Wall Street-funded politicians in Congress and the White House are proposing significant cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. They want to:

- Cut Social Security’s COLA – even though Social Security does not contribute one penny to the national deficit, and is financially secure for decades.

- Raise the eligibility age of Medicare from 65 to 67 – threatening the health and lives of tens of millions of seniors and people with disabilities who are dependent on Medicare for health coverage.

- Implement deep cuts in Medicaid funding, assisting the efforts of governors who have targeted Medicaid for state cuts and endangering tens of millions of Americans who count on Medicaid.

CALL YOUR SENATORS
1-866-251-4044 (toll free)

Tell them:
No cuts to Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid
No cuts to Social Security’s COLA
No Social Security payroll tax holiday

Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid belong to you – you pay for them in every paycheck. Don’t let them cut it or raid it.

What’s behind this attack?

The refusal of leaders of both parties to increase taxes on the wealthiest Americans and Wall Street – despite a huge decline in tax revenues from the top 1 percent of taxpayers and the majority of big corporations that evade taxes.

Efforts to privatize Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid and raid these benefits for Wall Street banks, investment houses, and insurance companies. Those who created the economic crisis don’t need more handouts.

This action is part of National Nurses United’s Main Street Contract for the American People – a new direction that puts Main Street first and asks Wall Street to pay their fair share.