The Shutdown is Over. Now What?

Government employees returned to work yesterday, and the price of averting a default on the country’s debts was the creation of a bi-partisan committee instructed to develop a long-term plan, by December 13, to reform Medicaid, Medicare, and other federal programs.

Here at Healthcare-NOW! we have a prediction: As always, talks over this “grand bargain” will descend into partisan, futile bickering with Republicans calling for deep cuts and privatization of Medicaid and Medicare, while Democrats will demand new tax revenue and more moderate cuts.

Sound familiar? Are you sick of it?

Then join fifteen other organizations, led by Progressive Democrats of America, this week by asking your Representative to become a leader for single-payer health reform by cosponsoring HR 676, the Improved and Expanded Medicare for All Act.

Call the U.S. Capitol Switchboard toll-free at (866) 220-0044, ask for your representative’s office, and then ask them to sign as a co-sponsor of HR 676.

You can also easily email your Rep. here.

Don’t know your Rep? Put your ZIP in here.

Once you call and email, please ask your friends and contacts to do so as well.

Partisan gridlock in Congress is partly a side-effect of our broken healthcare system. Healthcare costs are so high and rising so rapidly that they are edging out our ability to spend on anything else. Without single-payer on the table we are left with calls for “fiscal responsibility” that will endanger millions of patients, or pushes to expand access without addressing unsustainable costs.

Let’s call it the olive branch that neither party wants but both parties desperately need. Call your Congressperson today to co-sponsor HR 676, for improved and expanded Medicare for All.