Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Health Care Officially Launches

Yesterday, Healthcare-NOW, co-founder of the Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Health Care, took part in the official launch of the coalition in Washington, DC.

Nurses, doctors, students, large community-based membership groups, labor unions, religious organizations, and activists launched a new healthcare alliance called the Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Health Care.

The member organizations lay claim to a membership base of more than 20 million people.

The Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Health Care believes that high-quality healthcare is a right of all people and should be provided equitably as a public service. A single-payer, national health program would eliminate the wasteful role played by private health insurance companies and, as a result, is the most cost-effective and efficient way to achieve healthcare for all in the U.S.

Healthcare-NOW!, a movement-building organization that promotes the people’s voice for single-payer, national healthcare, will continue to strengthen the national coalition with its strong network of volunteer activists, in nearly every state, working to educate, advocate, and agitate for the only solution to the healthcare crisis proven to provide seamless access to care for everyone at less cost than our current patchwork system.

With the expansion of the Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Health Care in November 2008, our single-payer allies are increasingly solidified and have since accelerated the growth and capacity of the single-payer movement.

After the press conference, a briefing was held in the Rayburn building of Congress titled “Economic Solutions through Health Care Reform” which was well-attended by Congressional aides and also Congressman John Conyers.

Following the briefing, a copy of Dr. John Geyman’s “Do Not Resuscitate” was delivered by volunteers to every single Congress person’s office.

The Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Health Care supports HR 676, a bill that calls for a “Medicare-for-All” system. Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) has reintroduced HR 676 January 26th, 2009. The first 30 cosponsors signed on in the first hour after it was introduced.

It may seem like a small number, and yes we have a lot of work to do to make sure all of the cosponsors from the last session of Congress are ready to sign on again.

Please continue to write, call, and lobby your representatives. If your congress person is a cosponsor consider sending a thank you letter or holding an event to thank him.

Lobby efforts are starting to be tracked through www.guaranteedhealthcare4all.org. Please check out the site and submit information about what is happening in your congressional district to support HR 676. We need your help to make this tool work. If you can be a district contact person, please let us know. We will post your name and email with your district to the site.

If your Congress person has not yet cosponsored HR 676, ask them why not? What will it take to get them to cosponsor? Then let’s make it happen!

Healthcare-NOW! built its network using an organizing tool we call Citizen Congressional Hearings or Truth Hearings. These are an excellent way to strengthen your local coalition and pressure your Congress person to cosponsor HR 676. Find out more about how to organize a truth hearing.

3 Comments

  1. lucile darcy on February 12, 2009 at 8:09 am

    improved quality healthcare for ALL through single payer



  2. Gianni Vlacich on February 12, 2009 at 2:00 pm

    I certainly would support the measure…although i would like some information as to what “single payer ” is and how it works, what would be covered and how much would it cost. On another note does this compare with Obamas campaign rhetoric stating that all Americans should enjoy the same health care that members of the Senate and Congress enjoy?
    Gianni Vlacich



  3. Robert Burns on February 6, 2010 at 3:48 am

    Single-payer is not only something America can afford for all Americans, it is something we cannot afford not to do for our citizens. When a man like Senator Max Baucus,(D)(MT)can womanize about and appear, intoxicated, as he has to speak on the Senate floor, and then exclude doctors and have them arrested and removed from a caucus meeting when they ask to be heard, somethinbg is very wrong (sick, in fact) with our democracy. Health insurers are at the table; their stock is going up. How could it not when they help finance elections of the Parliament of Whores we call the U.S. Congress?
    It is time (past time) for non-violent, mass, civil disobedience!