Action Alert: Please Call Now for Single-Payer National Healthcare
It’s National Nurses Week, and there are many single-payer festivities in Washington, DC. Help us celebrate the leading role nurses play in the single-payer movement by joining us in Washington DC and/or making a call to get single-payer experts into the Senate Finance Committee Roundtable discussion!
This Tuesday, May 12, the Senate Finance Committee is holding its final roundtable discussion on healthcare reform. The California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Commmittee has issued a request to include Rose Ann DeMoro, Executive Director of CNA/NNOC and longtime leader in the single-payer movement. PNHP has formally submitted the names of two outstanding physicians, Drs. Marcia Angell and Steffie Woolhandler, to testify as expert witnesses.
These voices must be heard. Nurses and doctors are on the front lines of our broken health care system, and they should be the first in line to testify on health reform.
As you probably heard, at the last Senate Finance Committee hearing, physicians and single-payer advocates stood one-by-one to ask to have a seat at the table. The Senators laughed and had each one arrested. We need to end the exlusion of the only plan that will be truly universal and contain costs. Our health depends on it.
Here is what you can do: Single-Payer New York met with Senator Schumer, member of the Senate Finance Committee, on Friday evening. He agreed to ask Chairman Baucus to include a single-payer expert if we can get another Senator on the committee to join him. If you are a constituent of the following Senators, you can call and ask them to join Senator Schumer [NY] of the Senate Finance Committee to ask Senator Baucus to include a single-payer expert in Tuesday’s Hearing:
Stabenow [MI] – Washington DC office 202-224-4822
Kerry [MA] – Washington DC office (202) 224-2742
Rockefeller [WV] – Washington DC office (202) 224-6472
For a full list of Senate Finance Committee members, go here.
If you are not a constituent of Senators on the Finance Committee, please call Sen. Baucus’ office in Washington and urge him to extend the invitations at 202-224-2651, or fax him at (202) 224-9412.
Thank you for your support at this critical time in our nation’s health!
I have called my senator, Bill Nelson D-FL, and spoke to his aide, Kevin. Kevin told me that Nelson does not want to see the insurance companies destroyed. I told him that the committee should hear all sides of the issue and to ask that the representatives of the CA nurses and PNHP be allowed at the hearing for tomorrow. I told him that I feel very strongly about this issue and am asking the Senator for his help. Because of auto accidents that were not my fault, I have lost employment. I worked 4 years for the FL dept of health and got an e-mail(letter also)from my supervisor that I should not use my sick leave for medical care. The e-mail was sent after the first accident in 2004 and stated that I would be subject to repercussions for using my sick leave. I was told to have my doctor submit an FMSL form. I had it back to him 4 days later to avoid those repercussions. My supervisor screamed at my doctor for medical records (I thought for the FMSL.). He never processed that form OR my address change (supervisor even testified in a hearing that she had received it but that she shredded it and did not have it processed in Tallahassee). I had 3 accidents, none my fault, in 2004 and was repeatedly warned about using sick leave for medical care. Lost my job for asking the mailroom staff if they had seen a letter sent from the main office in Tallahassee for me because they said that disrupted mail delivery. I could not get COBRA because no one would send the papers to me at my new address. I am still fighting this but the state of FL will not let me have COBRA. It has now been over 3 years without health insurance. I have not been able to get the medical care that I need for those auto accidents.
If we had universal health care, I would not be in this mess. My injuries would have been taken care of. One attorney for the state told me (during our discussion about my Cobra fight) that I should understand that insurance companies need to make a profit. I have to go without my healthcare so that the health insurance companies can make their profit!!! We need to have single payer healthcare so this kind of thing never happens again.
i,m tired of being ripped off by my ins company, every year and having to go thru hassel very time Ineed to use my ins.
i,m all for single payer national health care, hurry.
Reply to Sarah,
As someone who works in the legal field, I would recommend that you hire an attorney to sue the drivers who hit you. The attorney would take a percentage of your settlement but it is worth it in your situation especially. This path is not quick but neither is fighting “city hall”.
Speak with a attorney in your area to help you. I was hit by someone a few years ago and the first phone call I got was from an insurance adjuster offering me $1,000 bucks. I told her I would be retaining counsel and she was to contact that person from now on. Ultimately the insurance company settled for $15,000 of which the attorney got 1/3 – but still the money I got was far more than the $1,000 initially offered by the insurance company.
Finally, if you cannot work because of these injuries you should see about social security disability payments. Here to you may need to hire counsel – what a “great nation” we live in! Where the only one getting rich are the lawyers and the corporate big wigs!
Good luck to you!
Sara, I also have contacted Sen. Bill Nelson and he does not support a single payer system. He has made that abundantly clear in his correspondence and through his actions. I will also make it abundantly clear that I do not support politicians who do not support HR676/single payer healthcare with my VOTE. I will make sure to remind everyone at election time of Nelson’s standpoint, and I will vote accordingly.
What I wrote on pres.Obama’s web site health care reform I have copied this and will paste below ;Share your questions and ideas for changing Health Care for all Americans:
For 17 years I paid $7,500 I only used it ONE time in the 17th yr.I was humiliated by the Primary to get to see a OBGYN and then I was given VIOXX for pain in my female parts.it took a Ultra Sound Probe to break off inside of me to get the cancer removed .2 weeks later BCBS tells us they will not cover female cancer in me again .I can not afford any now I am much older and have had other conditions from being sprayed in West Tenn. for 7 years with malithion .I cant get no kind of Lawyer help or doctor help or Human services tells me I dont Qualify for anything but death like the emergency room in Jackson Tn. 2003 when I caught HBV @ work and I was given steriods for it ,I rushed to the hospital and the county Jackson said sorry there is nothing we can do for you , and it was full of well dress illegals that PICTSWEET Frozen vegestable company Bused in from Mexico .I had to try a natural cure to save my own life looking for a healer after being thrown out from the COUNTY I found a natural cure and it worked ,2 weeks later I see a Specialist from Duke liver /gastro / forensic , he tells me workmans comp do it all the time , kill people in west tennessee like they were trying to kill me .All lawyers and doctors refused me some lawyers yelled and hung up on me !Doctors laughed in my face and said I must of caught it some place else ! Now I think I have colon cancer form the malithion and I am invisable .Please enact HR676 and give everyone a fair chance at life? I want to Live Mr.President !
That’s a terrible thing to have happened to you Eliza. But unfortunately that is going on all across America. People are being used to profit off of by the insurance companies and then when you need THEM, they are not there for you. I’m surprised you can’t find a lawyer to help you with the malithion issue. Maybe check with a lawyer referral service because sometimes there are lawyers not in your area, but may be in other parts of your state or even somewhere else in the country that can help you. Please keep your spirits up. Everyone keep writing, keep calling, keep protesting…also contact the President-remind him of his support of a single payer system that helped get him into office, your reps in Congress and make sure you let them know YOU VOTE and you will VOTE THEM OUT if a single payer system is not enacted. People, please donate when you can as well, to healthcare-now.org and any of the many other single payer organizations that are fighting the CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT OF OUR TIME!
As Winston Churchill once said NEVER GIVE UP-NEVER GIVE UP-NEVER GIVE UP!