Health care is a human right, and to quote a nice, elderly man from my hippie church "We all need to get off our asses and make sure this thing passes!"

It's been a long time since I've posted on MOMocrats, the blog I started along with Glennia and Beth because, after 8 years of Bush "leading" our country, there was no way we were going to allow a Republican to become president.

After the election of Barack Obama, I was completely burned out. So much of my time, effort, brain space, and blogging was devoted to getting a Democrat elected that I needed a break. I just didn't expect that it would last 9 months.

I can't remember the last time I watched Olbermann. I don't hit refresh on Huffington Post or Politico or factcheck.org multiple times a day like I used to. My papers stacked up so I finally canceled my subscriptions. I have been content to focus on other aspects of my life feeling as if now, our country is finally in good hands. And it mostly is.

Except that over the last month or so, as I have watched the people who are working so hard to reform our failing healthcare system and to pass HR676 having to do battle against a well-funded, lie-spreading machine, I have gotten angrier and angrier. How people like Sarah Palin are STILL being so careless with their words. Death panels and socialized medicine? And people believe it.

How members of congress who have accepted hundreds or millions of dollars in donations from insurance and pharmaceutical companies are allowed time on the floor.

How Democratic members of congress (I'm looking at you, Feinstein) can say, "I am not for a public option."

And the guns.  Don't even get me started on the guns.

As I sat in my beloved hippie church today, listening to our speaker, Lynn Huidekoper, one of the founders of the Single Payer Coalition, share information on this landmark healthcare decision—a reform that could finally bring the United States in line with the other 27 highly developed nations of the world—I knew that it was time. Healthcare reform was my path back to MOMocrats. I know that my sisters here have been carrying on the healthcare fight for months now, but now is the time that I need to step up and do my part.

We MOMocrats did so much good before sharing our thoughts and combating lies and getting the right person elected president, that it's time to do it again. Healthcare needs to be our change we can believe in. If you believe that our current system is broken and that healthcare is a basic human right—that access to good healthcare is something that all people should have—then you, too, regardless of your political or religious affiliation, must take up this fight. It is only through the efforts of a very passionate and vocal grassroots effort that we are going to get HR676 passed.

So what can you do? 

First, let's counteract the lies and untruths with what Huidekoper calls, "no-brainers." These are the simple facts that you can copy and paste and include in an email to all your family and friends, and they are:

1. Healthcare is a human right.
2. We are not starting from scratch--we are taking an existing program, Medicare, and expanding it.
3. Medicare is a single payer program for those 65 and older. (We know what it is.)
4. Single payer means expanding Medicare to cover all. (Take something we are already doing and make it cover all Americans, not just those 65 and older.)
5. 5% overhead instead of 30% (Think about how much insurance and pharamaceutical companies spend on advertising. I never saw ads for erectile dysfuction, eyelash lengtheners, overactive bladder, or hyperactive leg syndrome on TV 10 or 15 years ago.)
6. It will cost less.
7. Everyone is covered, no denials, no preexisting conditions.
8. It is NOT free.
9. Employees and Employers pay into the system. Look at your pay stub, we already know how to do it.
10. Business will be paying 4.75% payroll instead of 16%.
11. A rich benefit package will be available to all.
12. All will have long term care, vision and dental covered (individual state plans right now may not, but federal will).
13. No more bankruptcies due to health care bills.
14. It is NOT socialized medicine. Socialized medicine is where government owns the hospitals, doctors, and everything in it. There are only a handful of truly socialist medicine systems in the world and guess what?  One of them is in the United States: it's called the VA.
15. Health care delivery remains private. Under HR676 patients continue to see private doctors in private hospitals. Government claims will be processed by private insurance companies not government agencies. See #14: It is NOT socialized medicine.
16. Total choice of health care provider. Under single payer you can go to any doctor, not just the ones in your plan. HMOs are more restrictive NOW.
17. More money will go to health care.
18. No more middle man between doctor and patient, contrary to what opponents say. The middle men are the insurance companies who currently tell doctors what tests and medications they will and will not allow.
19. Doctors will regain control of healthcare--which is why 60% of doctors support single payer.
20. No more deaths due to uninsurance or denial of care. Twenty thousand people a year die yearly because they are not insured, are under insured, or have been denied care.  That is an outrage.
21. No more obscene salaries for insurance CEOs.
22. No more inhumane waits in ERs for primary care.
23 We will join all the other industrialized nations in covering EVERYONE.

Second, you must contact your congressmember and to tell to vote yes on:

1. Anthony Weiner's amendment to HR 3200 about single payer when it comes up for a vote on the House floor in September and
2. Dennis Kucinich's amendment which waives ERISA requirements so that states can pursue single payer legislation.

Call 202-224-3121 and ask for your member's office.

Third, you must call the Senate Finance Commitee Members NOW to demand a public option on their bill:

Max Bauchus D-MT (ranking member) 202-224-2651
John D. Rockefeller, IV  D-WV 202-224-6472
Kent Conrad D-ND 202-224-2043
James M. Jeffords I-VT 202-224-5141
Jeff Bingaman D-NM 202-224-5521
John F. Kerry D-MA 202-224-2742
Blanche Lambert Lincoln D-AR 202-224-4843
Ron Wyden D-OR 202-224-5244
Charles Shumer D-NY 202-224-6542

The rest of the committee is here.

Californians can also call:

Sen. Barbara Boxer 202-224-3553/415-403-0100
Sen. Dianne Feinstein 202-224-3841/415-393-0707

Fourth, look for Single Payer Healthcare Coalition meetings in your area. More information can be found at Healthcare-NOW.

Now, let's get off our asses like the nice man at church said, and git 'er done!

Healthcare now, for all Americans.

—Stefania Pomponi Butler

Comments

[Michael]

Great article! Sorry that I am a DadCrat not a momcrat, but at least I go to the same "Hippie Church" as you. I really don't understand how people can be against providing healthcare to the country. Sorry, but just doesn't make sense to me.

Thanks for the list of people to contact to help make this happen.

[Lyra Halprin]

Fabulous column. Found out about Momocrats on Twitter through Glennia...don't know how. Love her posts, and this blog entry is awesome. Will send on to my friends. I go to that same 'hippie church,' which sometimes manifests itself in my synagogue. Great rabbi who participated in a group phone call with Pres. O last week and is eager to spread the word. Go, team!

[OM]

I'm with the dad. I just don't get it. Unless we're talking about people who are either so easily manipulated by insurance companies and by political partisans, or so filled with hate for Obama, that no "no brainer" can convince them this is a good thing.

[Progressive Mews]

Thank you for compiling what Single Payer advocates have been in desperate need of all along; a "bumper-sticker slogan" style list of easy, breezys FACTS to swing around!

"15. Health care delivery remains private. Under HR676 patients continue to see private doctors in private hospitals. Government claims will be processed by private insurance companies not government agencies. See #14: It is NOT socialized medicine."

This one I wasn't aware of, and I'm pretty well versed in Single Payer too! I have to look that one up; which thankfully, is VERY easy to do, with HR676 being only about 100 pages long!

By the way, if you want to look up something in ANY of the bills, and you can even compare details side by side too. This is a really great search engine for the reform bills:

http://www.kff.org/healthreform/sidebyside.cfm

Anyway, it was my understanding that private insurers wouldn't exist in a Single Payer system, at least not to process general care. I thought they would only offer supplemental (non-essential) coverage plans; to cover things like private hospital rooms and non-reconstructive (elective) plastic surgery. I know in some SP countries you can get coverage for the co-pays they have, just for convenience; like the $5 or $10 dollars for doctor visits and prescriptions.

For those of you that like to know a little more...

It is interesting to note that the payment plan for HR676 is VERY simple:

http://conyers.house.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Issues.Home&Issue_id=063b74a4-19b9-b4b1-126b-f67f60e05f8c

• Maintain current federal and state funding for existing health care programs
• Establish employer/employee payroll tax of 4.75% (includes present 1.45% Medicare tax)
• Establish a 5% health tax on the top 5% of income earners, 10% tax on top 1% of wage earners
• ¼ of 1% stock transaction tax
• Close corporate tax loopholes
• Repeal the Bush tax cuts for the highest income earners

AND, there is a study that has been done on Single Payer that shows it would be an MAJOR economic boost for the US too! It shows it would generate well over $400 Billion in public & private revenues, and increased wages. Plus, it would create over 2.6 million jobs (just a little more than were lost last year alone), and 70% of those new jobs would be OUTSIDE the health care industry too!

http://www.calnurses.org/media-center/press-releases/2009/february/update-on-landmark-study-on-single-payer-as-economic-stimulus.html

What most people don't realize is that the health care industry accounts for 17% of our economy's productivity, and it's incredibly far reaching. But with the rising cost of health care (mostly due to private insurers), the overall cost of our health care system is now nearly 20% of our economy.

Did you also know that every single other country in the world with a national/universal health care plan, pays no more than 70% of what we pay for ours? It's a fact!

www.facebook.com/ProgressiveMews
Twitter @ProgressiveMews

[cynematic]

You and your voice were missed, Stefania! You came back in a fabulous way with this post.

This is what I've come around to: if bipartisanship is impossible, then we should double down on single payer and accept the public option as a compromise.

[Progressive Mews]

Cynematic, this really should have been the strategy from the get go! Serious mistake in political calculus.

"double down on single payer and accept the public option as a compromise"

Instead, Americans are confused and thinking the public option is the 'FAR Left' solution, and don't really understand what Single Payer is. But then, we didn't have Stefania's list of easy to understand phrases either!

[Robyn]

Thanks, Stefania for the list. I love it. I am for healthcare for all, but I am still very skeptical about the bill or the government's ability to control it. I'm looking forward to hearing more from the Momocrats about healthcare. There is so much mis-information out there that I don't know what to think.

[Mara]

I'm grateful for this lucid list. One question I have that I don't see being discussed is about tort reform. I think that in order for this to work in a meaningful way, we have to control the cost of malpractice insurance. Is anyone even talking about this to your knowledge?

[Donna]

It is wonderful to have your voice hear again - as Cyn said, you've been missed. Thank you for this post.

[Wendy]

Great article... I am wondering how come you dont have a Facebook post link on this page? I wanted to post it to my page, but cant find the little "f" icon to post it?

[Amy]

Love this list! I've always been supportive of healthcare for all. I was strongly reminded of that when my 6-year old son was denied healthcare insurance earlier this year because of pre-existing conditions such as having had croup as a toddler and a sinus infection. He is seriously one of the healthiest kids I know and his pediatrician and I were floored that he would be denied coverage for something like this. It really showed me that we do need healthcare reform.

[Dental Plan Provider]

This long list of truths should have already been enacted. "#16. Total choice of health care provider. Under single payer you can go to any doctor, not just the ones in your plan. HMOs are more restrictive NOW." I am totally disgusted with this limitation on health care policy because sometimes even if the affiliated doctor's specialty is not what you need, you have no choice if you can't afford to get an specialist. :-(

[paystub template]

This is exactly what I'm looking for. Very wonderful articles, great work.