Health Care

By David Swanson

Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey spoke to a crowd of activists from around the country at Busboys and Poets restaurant in Washington, D.C., Thursday evening at a fifth year birthday party for Progressive Democrats of America (PDA). Woolsey opened by remarking that the Out of Iraq Caucus, following the August recess, would “get on top of Afghanistan.”

We were outraged by the Iraq War, Woolsey said, but now, as war is escalated in Afghanistan “because it’s our president read more

By David Swanson, PDA
July 31, 2009, Washington, DC

Progressive Democrats of America has turned five. I’ve written before about what PDA has accomplished. On Thursday night it celebrated the five-year mark with a party at the end of a long day of rallying, lobbying, and strategizing on Capitol Hill. The party was fittingly held at Busboys and Poets restaurant, whose owner Andy Shallal has been a big supporter and participant in PDA.

Shallal spoke at the event, as did Medea Benjamin, Donna read more

So the “leadership” avoided a vote on single-payer in the Energy and Commerce Committee in exchange for allowing one on the House floor in September, presumably prior to a vote on a public option bill. This is a good thing, as well as bad. It’s bad that we lost the chance for a committee vote today. It’s good that we can advance the cause of single-payer, and we have a month in which to work the miracle of finding 100 new supporters and/or persuading a significant caucus read more

By David Swanson

If you support a healthcare bill with a public option in it, chances are many single-payer advocates don’t trust you. If you supported that same bill in exactly the same way and also advocated leaving in it the language that allows states to create single-payer, those same missing passionate advocates might not line up perfectly with you, but many of them would be willing to work together — or at least have a beer on a picnic table and talk about it.

You wouldn’t read more

Here’s a blog from Digby acknowledging the reduction of the public option from where it started to next-to-nothing. It’s not clear whether Digby thinks it would have been smarter to start with single-payer, in order to end up with a better compromise than what you get by initially proposing the weakest plan you’ll settle for. But Digby argues that proposing single-payer from the start read more

By David Swanson

Following a pattern of civil resistance in Washington D.C. and around the country, citizens in Des Moines Iowa on Monday risked arrest to press for the creation of single-payer healthcare, the establishment of healthcare as a human right, and an end to the deadly practices of Iowa’s largest health insurance company, Wellmark Blue Cross Blue Shield.

Dr. Margaret Flowers, who has herself gone to jail for single-payer in our nation’s capital, was on hand to speak in Des read more

By David Swanson

President Obama said on Tuesday night:

“Now, the truth is that, unless you have a — what’s called a single-payer system, in which everybody is automatically covered, then you’re probably not going to reach every single individual because there’s always going to be somebody out there who thinks they’re indestructible and doesn’t want to get health care, doesn’t bother getting health care, and then, unfortunately, when they get hit read more

By David Swanson

Congressman Anthony Weiner (D., N.Y.) has introduced an amendment in the House Energy and Commerce Committee that would replace the convoluted please-the-public-and-the-insurance-companies-at-the-same-time healthcare bill with the single-payer plan found in HR 676 and backed by 86 members of Congress. The vote has been delayed beyond Wednesday, support for the measure is growing, people are phoning in constantly, and a whip count is being kept online.

An amendment introduced by read more