Do you wish that your nurse had a gag order preventing her from speaking up on behalf of patients? Should RNs be fired for reporting on hospital safety errors? What about prosecuted for blowing the whistle on quack doctors or heartless healthcare corporations?
Unfortunately this is exactly what too many hospitals are trying to do in our nation today. While the healthcare bill may have passed, there remain life and death patient safety and care issues that we as a nation need to address.
If you are a supporter of America's nurses, please read what we're talking about, below, and then offer your solidarity with RNs. We believe this story will outrage you.
Unless you live under a rock or in Antarctica, you will by now know this week, President Obama signed the healthcare reform bill into law.
As a fellow liberal, I am very happy to hear this news. But, in the past week, the news has been jumping on every opportunity to downplay the accomplishment, or play up the Republican rhetoric that the majority of Americans don't agree with the bill.
A recent Washington Post article has the spread at 46 to 50, the majority opposing the bill. But upon further reading, you can see that the margin of error is at 3 points, meaning the poll isn't conclusive. (The percentage for people in support of the bill could be from 43-49%, and the percentage against is anywhere from 47-53. These numbers overlap.)
But beyond petty arguments of numbers, it is hard to deny that this is, in the words of Vice President Joe Biden, a big, fucking deal (see below video). This is the first real upheaval of the system... ever. It's the culmination of years of work spanning back to Hillary Clinton's crusade during her husband's presidency.
At the end of the day, 32 million more Americans will have health insurance, and the bill will reduce our national deficit by $143 billion in the first 10 years.
What's not to love? Those facts are what is important.
Despite the possibility that a slim and debatable majority of Americans don't agree with the bill, this IS A GOOD THING.
Just hopped off the conference call with Richard Trumka from the AFL-CIO.
This morning, the AFL-CIO leadership voted in overwhelming favor (higher than 90%) of "active support" for the current health care proposals in the face of slight changes to the excise tax agreement.
Today, I sat in on the Rules Committee hearing. It was a rather arcane meeting today to authorize suspension bills to be brought to the House floor over the next couple days and the weekend. Currently, House rules prohibit suspension bills from being brought to the floor between Thursday and Sunday without the rules committee specifically allowing it. (Why? I am still trying to figure that out.)
Let me get this straight. The Senate will pass a public option if the House will. And the House will, because it already did. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi won't allow it. So the mortal enemy of public-option backers is . . . Dennis Kucinich.
Why? Because when Congressman Kucinich said he'd stand for a public option he stupidly thought he was supposed to mean it.
Today I dropped in on the health care rally in DC. Everyone who's anyone was there (not literally, but it certainly felt that way when I was there).
Howard Dean was there. We got to ask him if he thinks the Democratic leadership is prepared to move forward without Republicans and if he agrees with the statement that House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer made at the health care summit that everyone shares the same goal of covering all Americans:
The health insurance bill currently under consideration in Congress would forbid states from providing their residents with healthcare. An amendment correcting that problem was passed in committee last July and then quietly removed. A new campaign is asking the Democrats who voted for that amendment to withhold their votes on the bill until it is reinstated.
Several states' legislatures are close to enacting single-payer healthcare bills. This is a complete healthcare solution that eliminates the for-profit insurance industry, lowers the cost of pharmaceuticals, reduces bureaucracy, and provides universal coverage. As President Obama explains: "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."
I really hate having to come back to this over and over again. Let's get our abortion-and-health-care basics down folks. The Senate bill does nothing to change the standard we have lived by that no federal funding shall be used for abortion.
The administration and Organizing for Obama are clearly aware that many of the strongest supporters of healthcare reform are reluctant to support the President's current plan because it lacks a public option. In the OFA conference call on finishing health care reform the following question was asked:
Q: I was just wondering if we come across folks who are still advocating for the public option, should we still be supportive of that or would that mess things up?
Mitch: The President laid out his plan and the public option is not in that and I know a lot of people - not only on the phone here - but a lot of the folks that you talk to feel very strongly about the public option, but this is what I would say... This is our best shot at getting health insurance reform; comprehensive health insurance reform passed and while its not going to be exactly what everyone wants. This bill - the President's plan - accomplishes 90% of what I think all of us agree is a step in the right direction. So I would just talk about what is at stake. Sitting on the side lines based off of the public option - at this point is going to be absolutely detrimental to our efforts as we move forward. We have a lot of conversations about that and just say what's at stake - is that the sole reason why you support health insurance reform? You know, pose that question to folks. If we don't get this done now, literally it will be a decade before anyone brings this back up again and our country can't afford that - businesses, families, individuals and our government - local, state and federal - can't afford to put this problem off for another decade so that is what I would say to folks. I know it isn't a perfect answer. I know a lot of people feel extremely strong about that issues, but that's the best answer I can give you all tonight.
(thanks to Chris Bowers for prosting this)
This is a gross misunderstanding of why public option supporters oppose the current bill. Our response is not the selfish, simple-minded "oh, we didn't get our pet project in the bill, so we're against it" mentality that OFA leadership has tried to present it as. We are, by and large, opposed to any bill that would force the uninsured (such as myself) to buy policies from the very same private insurance companies Obama and the Democratic leadership have painted as the corrupt, well-monied defenders of a broken status quo.
We cannot, and will not support a bill that rewards these companies for denying coverage, for putting profit over people's lives, for distorting the democratic process through lobbying money, by handing them 50 million new customers, forced by government to buy their overpriced products. We are not just sitting on the sidelines, we are fundamentally opposed to this type of a bill.
We have said from the very beginning, that if there is to be an individual mandate to buy insurance we must have some option outside of the existing private, for profit companies. Whether a new public agency, a non-profit, or a Medicare buy-in (this is what most progressives would actually prefer if voluntarily open to all ages), any or all would be fine, just not WellPoint (whose former CEO was the Baucus staffer that largely wrote the Senate bill that Obama has based his proposal around). We will not support a bill that was written by insurance company CEOs and lobbyists.
This is not a qualm over a small detail; it is a huge rift over the fundamental direction of healthcare reform and government in general. Do we truly change and move this country in a new direction, by once again using government to provide for the general welfare of the people, as the Constitution gives Congress the authority and responsibility to do (Section 8, Article I), or do we continue with more of the same: big government bailing out big business at the expense of our general welfare?
Canada did not create a civilized healthcare system nationally until its provinces led the way. Clearly Congress is dragging behind the states in our country, and it is through state successes that we will eventually compel the U.S. government to provide our people with this basic human right.
Hawaii has a single-payer healthcare system. California's legislature has passed a single-payer bill three times but not yet found a governor to sign it into law. Single-payer healthcare bills are advancing in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Minnesota, Massachusetts, and a growing list of states, including New Mexico, where State Senator Jerry Ortiz y Pino, a long-time supporter of single-payer healthcare, is running for Lieutenant Governor. In Minnesota, single-payer champion John Marty is running for Governor.
A bill to create single-payer healthcare in California has passed that state's senate for the third time now. Californians just need to persuade a governor to sign it. Single-payer healthcare bills are advancing in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Minnesota, Massachusetts, and a growing list of states, including New Mexico, where State Senator Jerry Ortiz y Pino, a long-time supporter of single-payer healthcare, is running for Lieutenant Governor.
Now North Carolina house candidate Marcus Brandon has pledged to introduce a bill to create single-payer healthcare in that state. Brandon, whom I know and like and who worked for Congressman Dennis Kucinich's 2008 presidential campaign, is a candidate in North Carolina House District 60. That's near Greensboro, where I can just picture Marcus sitting at a lunch counter and refusing to be provoked.
Ironically, it appears the most likely way to get healthcare reform is to pass GOOD healthcare reform.
The Democrats in Washington DC are likely to spend most of this week consumed by the question of how they can pass healthcare reform now. Fortunately, there's a fairly clear path.
Here are the constraints:
The Senate won't have 60 votes for diddly-squat. No Republican is going to vote for cloture on anything. Whatever the Senate is going to do needs to be done with 50 votes (plus Biden), which means budget reconciliation will have to be used.
The House doesn't trust the Senate. House members believing the Senate will fix something later is about as likely as pigs flying. Over and over in the last year, the Senate has completely screwed the House. No faith remains. That means the Senate is going to have to go first.
The House can't get 218 votes for the Senate bill. Every single House member is up for re-election in ten months. They've seen the polling, they've seen what happened in Massachusetts. They don't have political death wishes, and the profoundly flawed insurance giveaway that is the Senate bill isn't going to inspire them to take one for the team. The team they'd be asked to take one for is Aetna and United Healthcare and Joe Lieberman, friends - not their constituents. No way.
(Footage purchased from Sam Sumner, originally posted by Will Urquhart at Sum of Change)
As you may be aware, this weekend (tomorrow to be exact) marks the 37th anniversary of the passage of Roe v Wade, the supreme court decision that effectively legalized abortion nationwide. We have been working on a documentary about clinic escorts for some time now (tomorrow we will be making a big announcement about the film, sign up for our emails and you will be one of first to hear about it), so this weekend is a big chance for us to get some footage.
When I got back home from volunteering at the clinic, I saw an email from Operation Rescue announcing a press conference at the White House today. Luckily, I was able to track down a freelance videographer who sold us some great exclusive footage of Operation Rescue's President, Troy Newman, failing several times to name a single part of the current health care bills that allows for federal funding of abortion (although he knows for a fact it does, he just cannot tell you how):
On Christmas Eve morning, Senate Democrats followed through on their promise to pass their version of a health insurance reform bill before the Christmas Holiday, delivering what has been hailed by many liberal commentators in major media outlets as an "early Christmas gift." However, American workers concerned about the rising costs of health care, the poor quality of service provided by private insurance for those who can even afford it, and the millions of people left behind by for-profit, market based health care ought not get too excited about the Affordable Health Care for America Act. This "early gift" is more like a lump of coal!
Health care workers, activists, and patients, as well as labor leaders and rank workers in general -- many of whom voted the Democrats back into power in the "hope" they'd deliver a Universal, National Health Service -- have been left feeling confused, frustrated, and downright betrayed. The Senate bill, like the House version, cedes even more power to the already influential private, for-profit insurance industry: the same industry that financed the Democratic Party and President Obama's victorious electoral campaigns in 2008 while simultaneously padding the war chest of the Republican Party. They also bankrolled the fear-mongering and reactionary tea party "movement," which turned the longstanding American tradition of town hall meetings into an "at your own risk" excursion in 2009. That is to say, the health care industry funded both "sides" of the "debate," and now stands to reap a tremendous profit from their investment; all at the expense of the American working class.
The Senate bill differs little from the version passed in the House back in November. For the first time, individuals will be required by law to purchase insurance policies and maintain coverage, or pay punitive tax fines for non-compliance. Much of the language of the regressive Stupak Amendment, which prohibits the use of federal funds "to pay for any abortion or to cover any part of the costs of any health plan that includes coverage of abortion," is included in the Senate bill. A tax on so-called "Cadillac" insurance plans will hit unionized workers especially hard and undermine generations of struggle by workers for a decent standard of living. The insurance industry will receive billions of dollars in additional profits, guaranteed by the personal mandate, fine scheme and taxpayer funded subsidies, and gain access to new markets as the privatization of Medicare/Medicaid continues unabated and Medicare faces upwards of $400 billion in cuts. The industry also gets to keep its decades-old anti-trust exemption.
This scheme will cost American taxpayers over $800 billion dollars over the next decade and will do next to nothing to control costs; handing the great bulk of that money to the same private, for-profit insurers who have made a killing (literally!) denying Americans coverage or providing extremely limited and unreliable coverage, driving up costs and forcing many working class individuals and families into bankruptcy and poverty. Even more despicable is the 12 year market protection extended to Big Pharma for name-brand and high-tech prescription drugs, effectively a government guarantee of private corporate profits. Over 20 million people will still be left uninsured by the Senate bill, and countless more will be left without access to the health care they really need because, as many people have learned in the recent economic crisis, insurance does not guarantee access to actual care, especially not "affordable" care.
Of course, the only health care guaranteed to be "affordable" to all is universal, FREE health care and we can only have this by demanding, organizing for and winning a "Medicare for all" reform that includes everyone and leaves no one out, along the lines of the now-defunct HR 676 or SB 703. Public opinion polling has consistently shown for nearly a decade that Americans prefer such a national universal program over market-based proposals, and back in 2005/06 many leading Democrats paid lip service to such legislation, even promising to pass it if only American voters would deliver Democrats a "super majority" in the House and Senate. Well, the Democrats got their wish, and all American workers got was this lousy bill for $800 billion, which we get the "gift" of paying for over the next decade.
As many Americans crowd the post-holiday lines at our local department stores, seeking to return or exchange unwanted gifts, we ought to remember that the party-line vote to approve the Senate Democrats' bill was 39-60, with the Republicans favoring doing nothing and the Democrats supporting what amounts to a multi-billion dollar handout to the industry which is directly responsible for the death of 60 people in the US each and every day and the bankruptcy of thousands. Neither of these corporate, capitalist political parties represents the interests of the American working class, who make up the vast majority. America needs a working class party, an independent, mass party of labor based on the unions to fight uncompromisingly for the real interests of the majority. Only thus can we end the rationing of health care services based on economic privilege and win FREE, QUALITY health care for all as a human right!
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