Health Care

I blogged earlier about astroturfing on the left and a healthcare rally at which AFSCME chose to uninvite anyone supporting single-payer. The result was a rally at which half the crowd had single-payer signs, and the local TV stations reported on a debate between single-payer and the public option, as if no other position (such as nuts screaming about death panels) existed. TV reporters just need two sides, they don’t care which two sides or whether they’re leaving out a third or read more

By David Swanson

We’ve grown accustomed to recognizing astroturfing on the right. A corporate lobbyist sends letters to congress members forging the signatures and letterhead of local grassroots groups. Oil corporations create front groups to generate town-hall presence against legislation that could slow climate change. Health insurance companies fund “grassroots” activists to speak for them. Fox News encourages and exaggerates support for whatever the Republican Party tells read more

We need you! Health Care Reform rally, Monday August 24th, Charlottesvlle, VA at the Downtown Mall, 12 pm to 2 pm.

Join us at the pavilion near City Hall with three demands:

-Vote Yes on the Weiner amendment for single-payer healthcare.
-Keep the Kucinich amendment for states’ right to single-payer in the bill.
-Include a strong immediate public option.

Who: YOU and hundreds of community organizers, grassroots activists, and local politicians will gather to demand REAL health care reform. . read more

By David Swanson

“If you would lead, maybe we would follow,” David Michael Green writes to Obama in another witty and aggressive article (and ALMOST always I agree with and admire what Green writes). Green wishes Obama had drafted a healthcare plan rather than letting Congress do it and objects to Obama’s deference to Congress members funded by the health industry.

But you could pool the health industry bribes of any dozen congress members or senators you like and not come close read more

But it’s hard to keep our facts straight. Here’s an article by Sam Stein that misses the fact (according to Donna Smith who watched it) that during the committee debate on Kucinich’s amendment some of the Republicans cited states’ rights as their reason for voting yes. That may or may not have been sincere, but it was not just after-the-fact as Stein reports.

Also, nobody imagines a single Republican will vote for any healthcare bill, so I’m not sure why Stein read more

By David Swanson

The U.S. House of Representatives has committed to bringing single-payer healthcare to a vote following summer recess. Stranger things have happened, greater obstacles have been overcome, than what would be involved in winning that vote, winning in the Senate, and compelling the president to sign the bill. We have a moral responsibility to put everything we have into trying; and even a near-victory will advance the cause.

But it is important to recognize exactly how that promise read more

By David Swanson

Congressman John Conyers spoke to a crowd of activists from around the country at Busboys and Poets restaurant in Washington, D.C., Thursday evening at a fifth birthday party for Progressive Democrats of America. Conyers opened by remarking:

“There is no one more disappointed than I am in Barack Obama.”

This comment sank in hard for some of the activists in the room who had been told by Conyers last year that electing Obama took precedence over impeaching Dick Cheney. read more