Medicare for all (HR 676) rises again
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Here's the announcement, but I don't, unfortunately, see it at Conyers's own website. This time we're starting out with 25 cosponsors, including Pittsburgh's own Mike Doyle. The game's not over.
Vermont and California are making notable state-level efforts, too. However, Margaret Flowers says the Vermont proposal is not true single payer, as it would leave out those currently on Medicare or Medicaid.
And speaking of Margaret Flowers, there's a good interview with her at Healthcare-Now's site, with her take on how to fight the oligarchy:
There are three important principles that will guide effective action. First, our movements, whatever the issue, must be independent of political parties. The Republican and Democratic parties are both controlled by concentrated corporate power. There are some differences between those parties but overall they serve corporate power and not the people. We must be willing to hold all legislators accountable to act on behalf of people even if that means that they lose a few elections until the shift occurs. And independence also includes the media. We will have to make our own media because mainstream media is also controlled by corporate interests.
Second, we must be clear about what we ask for and that is where education comes in. We have the solutions to all of our problems. For health care it is a national single payer health system. For unemployment and the environment, it is investment in green jobs and ending oil and coal dependence. For the economy, it is developing sustainable local economies and ending Wall Street bailouts. And so on. We must educate the public through local events and independent media about these solutions.
And third, we must be uncompromising in our demands. We are too often willing to accept partial or non-solutions to our problems because we are told that what we want is politically infeasible. When we look at health care, we are constantly told that single payer is not politically feasible. We have heard this for decades. However, the legislation that passes which is politically feasible fails to be feasible from a practical standpoint. It simply doesn’t work. The number of un-insured continues to grow and soaring health care costs are destroying our families and businesses. At some point, we have to realize that we determine what is politically feasible because we hold the power of the vote. We must learn to use that power.
[my emphases]
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nice roundup of links
thanks for posting them.
more from pnhp on the vermont bill.
Flowers for president!!
n/t
Seconded!
Flowers for Prez!
"The language of Flowers"
Nice riff, if somebody (not me, at this hour) could think it through.
Gov. Chris "We dare not tax the rich!" Christie: Medicaid too
costly for NJ to afford, numbers of users have increased (uh, why, dude? maybe losing jobs?), NJ may need to cut Medicaid rolls drastically, AND ObamaCare will push costs to NJ up even higher (since states pay 50%).
So, to bolster his demand that public employees be paid less, pay more for pensions and benefits, maybe lose pensions, Christie is now recognizing that health care is broken. He will never mention that single payer could solve many of these problems.
BTW, Christie said Obama used wording he had used in his state of the State of NJ address and claimed that he is influencing Obama. Well...he IS a Republican so that might well be true.... (WNYC report, no transcript)
Crotchety former Sen. Simpson, co-chair (named by Obama) of the Obama-Pete Peterson Let Them Eat Cat Food Commission, now defunct (but, according to Simpson, with some staff still working on it; Peterson's staff?), said on NPR this morning (he was their go-to guy for budget cutting comments; he did support Obama, saying good beginning bcz Obama included many of the Commission's recommendations) that DOD has its own retirement health insurance, and retirees from DOD (does that include military? I think it does) only pay only $460 per year, for 2.2M retirees this costs US taxpayers $53B per year for their insurance. He said that was terrible and the rates should be increased to help with the deficit. He did not mention that maybe we should cut down on our empire to vastly cut the cost of our military and defense....
I love it when these foreign policy war hawks then turn around and don't want to support the people who have put their lives on the line to implement his stupid policies.
But Simpson is broadminded: He wants to force large cuts to Medicare as well ($400B for starters). Hammer Medicare, was his wording. Indeed, the main point of his interview is that we have to go after the Big Four: Medicare, Medicaid, SocSec, and the military. Simpson said LIHEAP is too important to cut, should go after private contractors in DOD.
(Friend of mine, vet in HA, told me that due to budget cuts (under Bush!), the buses to take handicapped vets from the handicapped parking area to the hospital were cut. Now, the vets, no matter how disabled, have to roll their wheelchairs or try to make the longish walk on their crutches or injured limbs.)
Or, they could target bondholders...
There's no reason the US Government should pay so much in debt service to borrow its own money.
CBO budget projections, using average interest rate of 5.0%, estimate $5 trillion in net interest payments over the next decade. if Uncle Sam stopped selling long bonds and capped the short-term rate at 0.375% (the rate cap used during WWII), it'd cut net interest payments over the next decade by more than $4.5 trillion. The downside of cutting this budget expenditure, of course, is that it doesn't hurt anybody who's vulnerable.
Why are we paying the banks to lend us our own money?
That is all.
wow!
add a few links to that and make a post out of it.. I know I would spread it around some.
What Eureka Springs said!
Give Uncle Sam a "Jubilee Year!"
Well, not exactly. Seriously, Beowulf, please, a post. Coin seignorage got great traction.
Flowers sounds like she is
Flowers sounds like she is channeling John J. Chapman in his book Practical Agitation. One of his points was you don't compromise with the enemy. You don't accept the lesser of two evils. When you do, all that happens is you lose your credibility and get something that doesn't work in return.
her take on how to fight the oligarchy:
"Second, we must be clear about what we ask for....."
"And third, we must be uncompromising in our demands."
What the protesters in Egypt did.
Flowers rules
that is all. the single payer movement is one of the things that has kept me sane in all these crazy times.