Action Alert: Demo. at National Health Policy Conference
Action alert! Target Health Insurers, Big Pharma, and Senator Baucus!
When: Tuesday, February 3, 2009, 8:30 – 10:00 AM
Where: JW Marriott, 1331 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Washington, DC
What
National Health Policy Conference that includes a Congressional Plenary on Tuesday morning starting at 9:00 AM. Senator Baucus and Representative Stark start off at 9:00, followed by Senate and House staff at 9:45 AM.
The Plan
-Gather outside the hotel with banners and signs
-Street theater targeting health insurers, big Pharma and Baucus
Theme
-Which side are you on, Senator?
-Who do you work for, Senator Baucus? Us or them?
-Leaflet passersby and conference attendees as they arrive
Key Talking Points
1. Single-payer health care can’t be “off the table.” Polling data, national endorsements, House support, and the results of Obama/Daschle house health care meetings (Jan. 15-31) dictate otherwise.
2. Baucus motives must be questioned. He receives major support from health insurance and pharmaceuticals – over $ 1 million in 2008. Schering-Plough, Aetna, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Kindred Healthcare and Wyeth were all in his list of top twenty contributors in the 2007-2008 election cycle. He told ABC News “Lobbyists just want what’s best for America,” and “they really care about our country.”
3. In his white paper report (link below), Baucus claims he wants to achieve coverage for every American, provide higher quality care with greater value, and weed out waste to create a sustainable financing system. His plan calls for private insurers to play a major role, yet the evidence indicates that a single-payer system is the only way to guarantee coverage to every American, and to control costs.
How You Can Help
-Bring folks, banners and signs on Tuesday morning from 8:30-10 AM
-Send out your own press advisory about the event, and follow-up with a press release. Include major papers in Montana.
-Encourage your constituents to flood Sen. Baucus with calls and letters
Contact us for more information at 800-453-1305 or info@healthcare-now.org.
The core unasked questions, which the single-payer movement should pose to Senator Baucus et. al. are:
1. Why should Americans entrust a new universal healthcare system to finance mechanisms and their allies, which have betrayed the public trust by perpetrating fraud-waste-abuse for decades?
2. Are we going to repeat a fool’s pattern —most recently illustrated by the Wall Street bailout in rewarding fraudsters, the corrupt, and the greedy — with rewards for healthcare opportunitsts’ to exponentially increase their ill-gotten gains and enrichment … at the expense of providing healthcare access and coverage to every American citizen?
3. No more inhumane product of pay-to-play politics is conceivable than the denial of Americans access to healthcare. Do we end pay-to-play first or do we attempt to establish single-payer without a publicly-financed electoral campaign system?
4. How do we help President Obama to educate the public to the hemorrhage of financial resources lost to the egregious business practices of almost all healthcare payers and many healthcare providers?
5. Can we really afford to sustain a systemically unaccountable and wasteful healthcare finance system and provide healthcare access and care to all Americans?
6. What is it that an insurance-based model does more efficiently than a single-payer system would do other than enrich special interests? Medial claims processing may done more efficiently by far less expensive mechanisms. What are the benefits of sustaining and indeed, proliferating the status quo?
Obama said he agrees that a single payer system is best but that he was concerned about insurance jobs that will be lost. All of those workers can simply go to work for we the people processing the claims; the other folks (sales people and retired MDs and nurses who are being used to screen people out of the care their premium was supposed to pay for) need to be put to work doing something truly useful and beneficial – ex., have those UR nurses actually care for patients instead of push paper and deny people care.
We already bailed out the insurance industry (AIG got the first and biggest bailout). That didn’t amount to anything but more greed. They had their chance. No more insurance co. bailouts. Time to take the insurance industry OUT of the business of caring for the health of America.
Lastly, people need to learn more about “govt. run health care” per one of the comments posted here. Single payer does not mean hospitals and clinics will be run by the govt. This is a common misconception by Americans. Please – before you post or jump, LEARN and get the facts!!! SINGLE PAYER means just that – instead of multiple private funding sources, there is simply one – like Medicare. Providers – private and public – DO NOT CHANGE AT ALL.
Make this thing happen by simply taxing the wealthy. It is absolutely horrific that people have more money than they know what to do with (the cars, multiple homes, money in off shore banks, more clothes and crap than any human being would ever need in a lifetime) and others who ALSO work hard at multiple jobs educating kids, caring for these peoples’ health, etc. (per the usual justification by the wealthy for not pulling their weight re helping others financially this way) can’t even afford fresh vegetables or a month’s rent on a safe studio apt.
Every single person that I hand out the info to wants this HR676 Universal Health care .Will it take a Million Man March to Washinton ? I would get on a bus to go to Washington for HR676 .Maybe someone needs to get a Event to get people to go to Washington with Plenty of time for the Presidents Team to know we are going to come .Maybe we could have a debate on the White House Lawn ? We need something to happen .Like I said EVERY Person I talk to wants HR676 .Not one person said no .Not one ! So I dont understand what else we have to do ?
Maybe if we had people who who take a LIVE Petition and give it to President Obama ? With everyones address and signature ? Something Legal ? Something that will give us HR676 Now ? call 1-202-456-1414 White House Line and tell them HR676 everyday make the call not just once !
If McCain-Feingold-Cochran had passed, we wouldn’t need a Million Man march on Washington as the Universal Health Care plan would be a done deal. Too many Senators getting too much money from the drug companies are making this bill almost impossible to pass. A Senator can not serve his constituency when he is in bed with the multi billion dollar corporations.
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