Cognitive Dissonance: The Healthcare Reform Battle State of Mind

It seems everyone in the healthcare reform movement is hitching up his or her britches and feeling mighty proud of the prospects for action under President Obama and the adoring Democrats in his Congressional arsenal. Even some prominent Republicans are inching ever closer to supporting change to the broken health system. But I'm feeling significant dissonance between the words spoken and the policy offered to move forward.

Greetings everyone.

This is Donna Smith of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee. I am on the staff for CNA/NNOC that is based in Washington, DC. We are busy here welcoming the new Congress and pushing support for single payer healthcare reform and John Conyers' bill HR676.

We are also one of the founding members of the Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Health Care along with Health Care-Now, Physicians for a National Health Program, the Progressive Democrats of America and many other labor, faith and political activist groups.

It's an exciting time in Washington, but by no means the time to rest easy because we have a new President and a new Congress. In fact, now is the time to push harder and more directly.

‘Sicko' subject to speak on health care reform

ITHACA — Donna Smith, who appeared in “Sicko,” the Michael Moore documentary film on the U.S. health care system, is expected to give a talk in Ithaca next week.

Smith and her husband, Larry, were forced to declare bankruptcy and lost their home because of medical care costs. She is part of the Healthcare Road Show, a traveling group and program calling for creation of a national single-payer health insurance system.

Smith is scheduled to tell her story and discuss the issue three times in two days:

* 7-9 p.m. Monday, Sept. 8 in Room 103 of Textor Hall at Ithaca College;