Hold Strong For Medicare For All

Healthcare-NOW! was founded with the basic understanding of the words of Martin Luther King, Jr that, “of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.” On the eve of Dr. King’s 81st birthday, we share with all of our supporters the frustration, dismay, and anger that the current legislation not only maintains, but intensifies, this fundamental inequality in the American healthcare system.

Congress is negotiating a final health insurance reform bill behind closed doors, since the Democratic leadership decided to bypass a formal conference committee. Despite the administration’s promise of transparency in the healthcare debate, not even CSPAN is allowed in these discussions and there is very little room for public comment in this process.

Regardless of the final details, we know that this legislation will maintain the role of private, for-profit health insurance, the leading cause of waste, denials of care, bankruptcies and death in our current system.

As Marilyn Clement, founder of Healthcare-NOW!, would say, “Don’t mourn, organize!”

Moving into 2010, Healthcare-NOW! and our partners in the movement will keep working to monitor and expose the failures of this bill, while educating, advocating and agitating for the single-payer solution.

Just like our grassroots, the grass tops continue to grow with the national alliance for single-payer healthcare to push for more active involvement from allied groups. Healthcare-NOW! will play a critical role in generating support to introduce and improve federal single-payer legislation.

We will continue to share and nurture the connections that are made in this unique coalition of faith, labor, doctors, nurses, and health advocates. Healthcare-NOW will serve as a resource for all in the single-payer movement.

The Win-Win Campaign for healthy cities continues to support the growing number endorsements of local government entities for single-payer national healthcare. We will support the march with the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign from New Orleans to the US Social Forum in Detroit for social and economic justice. We are developing a campaign to expose the attacks on our community hospitals because of the system’s focus on profits not access to quality care. We are aligning with groups to support campaign finance reform so that people, not special interests, control this democracy.

With your commitment, Healthcare-NOW! is poised to join with other organizations to strengthen the movement for a new social contract based on fairness and equality.

Contact us to get connected with single-payer activism in your area or start a chapter of your own. We can send you a starter kit with materials and ideas, and will be launching a new membership package this year to help assist coalitions organizing around the country. We need your support, commitment, and organizing skills to make this an unstoppable movement. The current reform is a small piece of the struggle in the larger movement for equality and democracy.

We survive and grow on the generosity of our supporters. Please give what you can to keep this movement going, and choose from the free gifts that help you continue to educate yourself and others about the growing movement for Medicare for All.

Thanks for all that you do,
Healthcare-NOW! National Staff and Steering Committee