Push back today (12/4) on Health Care Reform

Today is the time to call your U.S. Senators on healthcare reform.

The Senate is being moved further and further in the direction of a do-worse bill that not only doesn't have an effective public option, but which would remove all public funding for abortion no matter what the circumstances.

They are going that way b/c the lobbyists via Lincoln, Landrieu & Nelson are holding the process hostage.

The leadership has decided that anything that uses the words "public option", no matter how miniscule and ineffective at keeping healthcare affordable will satisfy the public. They think the only thing they have to fear, in terms of passage is the defection of the 3 Conservadems.

They need to hear different.

They need to know that if the final bill becomes useless, there is another direction the public and some Senators will move toward. Sens. Bernie Sanders, Sherrod Brown and Roland Burris are offering Amendment 2837, to replace the bulk of the bill w/ the single payer provisions outlined in the previous American Health Security Act (S. 703).

It will be voted on today or tomorrow.

Please call your Senators office to urge a yes vote on this amendment. It could begin the long, hard climb toward a Single Payer health system in the U.S.

At the very least it will raise the credible threat of the defection of progressive Senators if the leadership doesn't come up w/ a decent bill.

But this political system is broken until corporate influence is removed. Seems the only way to get heard or change now is to find out what the corporations are paying for legislation and over-match it. Re-buy the government that wethepeople already supposedly own?

Money is holding sway, and this compromise legislation already is stinky. I've told my reps numerous times, single payer with coverage for all, it's what most people want, look at the polls. And get back a spiel or form letter composed of pre-set baloney. Maybe attempting to make me ill with fury to please the health care corporations?

I think that we should all get well and stay well to spite them and throw a monkey wrench into this damned health care failure.

LOL.

You may be interested in the serious push Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.) are making for the Fair Elections Now Act as a way to counteract the expected disastrous Supreme Court ruling on Citizens United v. The FEC which is expected to define corporate campaign donations as protected political speech.

The Fair Elections Now! coalition (Brennan Center for Justice • Common Cause • Democracy Matters • Public Campaign • Public Citizen • U.S. PIRG) have joined in putting up an online petition you can sign. These reform groups are aware that things have come to a crisis. There've been a number of DU posts on the proposed bill (search FENA or "Fair Elections Now Act"), and I will be putting up a link to a nice video of this morning's interview of Durbin & Larson, as soon as it becomes available.