One month for single payer

Please use this thread to share any effective ideas you have for increasing support for single payer over the next month. Also, please share any pro single payer fliers/articles you have encountered. Here is one I especially enjoy ( http://hr676.org/resources/READY+TO+FIGHT2.pdf ). I'm going to print out thousands of these and spend any free time I have this month distributing them at busy intersections near where I live. What we need is mass mobilization. We need to galvanize the people of this country to take action. What strategies do you have? I think it's important to realize single payer can become a reality if we fight hard enough for it.

My sales pitch for HR676 is going to focus on two ideals, and I'll share these with every person I encounter.. if enough people contact and pressure Congress, who knows what could happen?

* we have an ethical obligation to provide all our citizens with health care
* the American people have the chance to regain power from the insurance companies

We need to take advantage of the widespread anti-big business sentiment that resulted from the financial crisis. Emphasize to people how a system of maximizing profit and providing less care has destroyed the reputation of our health industry with the rest of the industrialized world. We need to prove to them this new system will be sustainable and contain costs better than any other solution could. Finally, we need to establish the narrative that if hope exists in reforming our system, it lies in each of us and all of us. I think I may create my own flier highlighting these points. The above flier does a good job of emphasizing the differences between our current disastrous system and the beautiful beyond words single payer, but I want to create one that focuses on calling every person that reads it to take action: that reminds him true health reform isn't possible without his support.

Anyway, apologies for the random spiel, but I just want to use this thread as a place to share ideas and strategies. Single payer will get a vote in the house. That is what we needed. Now we have one month to do something, to do anything. I won't sit idle while this chance is here, and I hope the same is true for all of you!

of this present Congress and Administration. Unfortunately, it's from a conservative website that is also promoting the taking down Sonya Sotomayor. Someone worked really hard at doing this for bad reasons, but there is no reason we can't use the information. I thought if I gleaned the fax numbers of the pols on the various committees that are designing this disastrous healthcare, we could not only phone and email but also jam their fax machines with our message. I will be working on it the next couple of days and will post the pertinent information I get that is of use to us.

:)

nothing short of a MASSIVE march on dc is going to have any effect.
a unified date needs to be set, and 5-10 million people need to descend on the capitol and DEMAND it.

It is time to take to the streets of Washington. Where is the outrage at health insurance giants and big pharma? Why hasn't a major progressive organization like moveon.org spear-headed a national march on Washington? We haven't a moment to lose. The clock is ticking.

surprising that this has not happened yet.

:dem:

-Laelth

most of the people here probably do, and probably assumes that everyone else does too...but the vast majority of the electorate has no idea what the term means, or what it would entail. i've had to explain it to EVERY person that i've used the term with.

I talk to. They have no idea what it means. I have sent a link to the movie Sicko to people and told them to especially pay attention to the part of the movie where he goes to England and Canada and France and interviews people about their system, see the difference in the attitudes of people in those countries. They see healthcare as a right and are shocked that we do not.

After watching the movie, one of my friends, who really wasn't all that interested, emailed me yesterday and said she watched it twice and she cried, because for so long she thought she was wrong to think we deserved better healthcare treatment, that she was being selfish. She never complained, but felt something was wrong. She said watching the movie made her feel vindicated. She felt like someone who had escaped from a bad home and didn't know it was bad until she saw how other people live.

There has not been enough education on this. Americans are so cowed into accepting being treated worse than animals regarding their healthcare. Like people witht Stockholm syndrom, they cling to a bad system because they know nothing else and can't believe there are actually countries where the people's healthcare is a priority, a human right, not a profit-making industry.

I don't think we'll get a single payer system here until the whole attitude of Americans changes and they stop allowing themselves to be bullied, as they are, by a 'flock of vultures' as Kucinich calls them.

I will do is to keep sending links to the movie and talking to people I know and ask them to talk to others.

Today, eg, I was so sad when talking to a friend who is NOT a rightwinger and she said that she was sure the Canadian system was really bad. There is, even among Democrats, a reluctance to believe anything really bad about this country's government. That really surprised me. But, I think I convinced her and she too watched the movie with her husband. They were stunned by what they learned as they are among the lucky ones who have coverage.

I am also telling people about the free clinics for Americans which were meant to be for third world countries, and sending them photos that look like they are in a third world country. That wakens people up also. It makes them angry and ashamed that this is happening here in the US. I realize now that Americans are like abused children. They have come to believe that their circumstances are normal. That is hard to overcome as it means having to admit things they do not want to admit.

with that flyer would be more info on how it is paid for. From what I understand, it would be a minor increase in medicare tax, which would be alot less by far then we now pay for insurance. And a matching percentage paid by employers, which would also be significantly less than them paying for employee's health insurance. Would be good ammo in convincing folks.
K&R

Already.

My registratration and insurance for my car in Australia in 1992 was only $25/year.

Already.

My registratration and insurance for my car in Australia in 1992 was only $25/year.