According to a post on Pennsylvania blog, House speaker Nancy Pelosi will allow a mere twenty minutes of debate on single-payer, albeit indirectly.

Check out this thread at the AFL CIO blog. Trumka is getting some serious push back.

Wednesday, Oct 15, is Lobby Your Representative Day

If you are in Washington DC and can join Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Health Care in their lobbying efforts in support of Weiner's substitute single payer amendment and Kucinich's state single payer amendment, do so.

House lobby day – Wednesday, October 14th

* Lobby for Weiner HR676 substitute single-payer amendment votes
* Lobby for protection of Kucinich state single-payer option amendment

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I was late to the rally, I came in while the Raging Grannies were singing. Given that it had been raining, there was a decent crowd, I would guess 100 people. The Progressive Democrats of America were there wearing hospital gowns over their clothes with signs in the front that said "health insurance is like a hospital gown" with a sign in back that said "You are not really covered." They were wearing false fannies for full effect. It was pretty funny. Then the doctor's spoke. They told all the stories we have heard about how they cannot practice medicine the way they were taught in a for profit system.

Time to go to Jail; Civil Disobedience Campaign "Patients NOT Profits: Healthcare for All"

On September 29th in New York City, the Mobilization for Health Care for All is launching a campaign of "Patients Not Profit" sit-ins at insurance company offices to demand an end to a system that profits by denying people care and puts insurance company bureaucrats between doctors and patients. We want the real "public option": improved Medicare for All, a national single payer plan that cuts out the profit and puts patients first.
Private insurance death panels are killing people every day and blocking real health care reform.

It's time for nonviolent civil disobedience to turn the tide.

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Dr. Flowers to Dems: Vote Against Obamacare

Dr. Margaret Flowers wants the 86 co-sponsors of the House single payer bill (HR 676) to vote against Obamacare.

Dr. Flowers is a leader of the group Physicians for a National Health Program, whose 17,000 member doctors support a single payer, Medicare for All system for the United States.

Update: Join the Mad as Hell Doctors on Sept. 30th in Washington, DC

The Mad As Hell Doctors have been traveling across the country speaking out, educating and listening. They are appropriately angry at the current situation (which they distinguish from the destructive rage witnessed recently at Town Halls) and are doing something about it.

The tour will arrive in Washington, D.C on Wednesday, September 30th. We hope you can join us for their final stop – the White House. ...

...Meet at McPherson Square at 3 pm to march down Vermont Ave to Lafayette Park. Rally begins at 4 pm with music and exciting speakers

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Single-payer health-care system touted by supporters

GARY — Unlike recent town halls and tea parties focusing on health care reform, there was little vitriol, name-calling and rage at McBride Hall in Gary on Friday.

Rather, the 200 local retirees, union workers and officials, and health-reform activists who gathered listened and clapped to support physicians backing a single-payer health-care system.

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Group to walk for health care

A van full of doctors from Oregon will be joined by local residents Tuesday night to advance the cause of Medicare for all ages.

The public is invited to the Indiana side of the Clark Memorial Bridge to participate in the Medicare-For-All Bridge walk. The Oregon group, calling themselves the Mad as Hell Doctors, left Portland earlier this month on a 27-city tour that will end in Washington, D.C.

September 20th – 27th, 2009

Join us in Washington D.C. September 24th, 4:30 pm
for the
3rd Annual Health Care Justice Vigil

In solidarity with American Patients United's 3nd Annual Health Care Justice Vigil in Washington DC, single-payer/Medicare For All healthcare activists are organizing solidarity vigils from New York City to the state of Washington. Also, the G20 Summit will take place in Pittsburgh on September 24-25, and provides another opportunity for single payer activism.

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Whereas, Universal Health Care was proposed by President Teddy Roosevelt in 1912; and

Whereas today, nearly 100 years later, 47 million Americans are uninsured and another 50 million are underinsured bringing great social and economic harm to the American family; and

Whereas, HR 676, authored by Congressmen John Conyers and Dennis Kucinich provides for Medicare for All, a universal, single payer, not-for-profit health care system which means the end of premiums, copays and deductibles; and

Whereas we are already paying for a universal standard of care but are not getting it because one of every three dollars in the health care system goes to the activities of the for-profit insurance system; and

Whereas HR676 firmly establishes health care as a Civil Right, consistent with the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States and Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution which defines a purpose of government "to promote the General Welfare," now therefore,

I HEREBY EXPRESS MY STRONG SUPPORT FOR HR676, SINGLE PAYER HEALTH CARE, AND THE PRINCIPLES OF ECONOMIC JUSTICE FOR WHICH IT STANDS:

[signature]

My son wants to know, how to argue with "liberals" who say, isn't it a good thing if we cover more people than we do now?

My son is a consummate liberal. He's tried to get me to give him good arguments.

My arguments:

The present plan may, in fact, insure a handful - a hundred thousand -- but at the expense of charging a hundred thousend.

It insures only half (maybe) of the uninsured by pouring money into into the for-profit insurance companies.

Why would any person calling him/herself liberal, want to pour even more money into the for-profit insurers?

Folks, my son wants to know. He's a son of a baby-boomer who has, so far, resisted giving in to generational resentment. All your input is welcomed!

September 17, 2009, New York City

Single-Payer and Healthcare Reform–What’s Happening in Washington

Speakers: STANTON SHEK / ANTHONY ACCURSO / LEONARD RODBERG, PH.D
When: 7:30 PM
Where: Beth Israel Medical Center, Phillips Ambulatory Care Center, 10 Union Square East, Second Floor, Lecture Hall

PhillyBurbs.com

He also repeatedly told seniors that he does not support a Medicare-for-all type health system.

"We can't have a single-payer system," he said. "We can't afford it."

As you know this is a lie. HR 676 would SAVE the taxpayers $400 billion a year.

If you live in Murphy's district, please contact Murphy and tell him that HR 676 would save us $400 billion a year. Please write a letter to the local newspapers explaining the same.

Landrieu: Under "Very Few, If Any" Circumstances Would I Support A Public Option

"I'd like to cover everyone -- that would be the moral thing to do -- but it would be immoral to bankrupt the country while doing so," Landrieu said. The public option as currently conceived is expected to be a deficit reducer.

Now as we know, HR 676 would save the US Treasury $400 billion a year. That is $400 billion a year that Landrieu and others are willing to spend to prop up health insurance parasites.

Reid on stump in Pahrump

A group favoring House Bill HR 676 staked its claim along Highway 160.

HR 676, is the National Health Insurance Act, introduced by Congressman John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., who represents Detroit. Conyers' Web site states the bill's purpose is "to ensure that every American, regardless of income, employment status, or race, has access to quality, affordable health care services."

According to organizer Margery Kay Behrens, who has lived in Pahrump for 15 years, "Organizing for America has requested our presence to greet Harry Reid and the tea baggers with signs, banners and 'tea'-shirts in support of HR 676, single-payer health care."

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Via Ed Cone the health care debate on the back of a napkin.

[Information copied from handbills posted around the 'hood, and Healthcare-NOW.]

There will be a meeting to discuss Single Payer Health Care and HR 676, tomorrow, Wednesday 26 August, at 7 PM. Location: Holy Trinity Church, 20 Cummings Street, NY, NY. (One block north of Dyckman St. at Seaman Avenue.)

CONGRESS: Slaughter vows to vote for single-payer health bill

WASHINGTON — A “single-payer” proposal that would make the government the nation’s only source of health care will come up for a vote in the House in September, Rep. Louise Slaughter is promising her Western New York constituents.

“Single-payer deserves a vote, and I can assure you there will be one,” Slaughter said during a conference call with constituents from Orleans and Monroe counties.

Slaughter chairs the House Rules Committee. The panel will choose which amendments are considered to the health care reform legislation moving through the House.

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Tweet, tweet! twittertwittertwittertwittertwittertwittertwitter

So my messages to Blue Dogs are now being retweeted by complete strangers [and friends too]. Is the internet cool or what?

Thanks, tweeples! Keep up the good work!

And just because I can, I tweeted the same 7 Blue Dogs with the same message again today.

Prompted by DCB's post Canvassing for HR 676 in Terre Haute,

UPDATE: Interview with local coordinator for Hoosiers for a Commonsense Health Plan.

Health care reform advocates to meet with Ellsworth’s staff

TERRE HAUTE — As the Congressional battle over health care looms, some local organizers are heating up their efforts to advocate for major health care reform. Two groups have been collecting signatures in support of HR 676, otherwise known as the National Health Insurance Act.

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Tweet the Blue Dogs!

It's easy! It's fun!

Okay, so not everybody thinks Twitter is fun, or easy, or even relevant, but according to Tweet Congress, several Blue Dogs are on Twitter, so in the spirit of We the Tweeple, how about we tweet them?

I spoke with various aides in Rep Weiner's office today, and basically didn't get a whole lot more information than anybody else, though that's more my fault than theirs at the moment.

First: Yes, Anthony Weiner is very much in favor of single payer.

Yay! Woo hoo! Happy dance!

Second: The office [I only called the Wash DC office] is being deluged with calls.

The Challenge: get 15 Blue Dogs to vote Yes on HR 676.

Small setback [ouch], sounds like maybe Anthony Weiner may not be planning to pull his substitution move after all?

Although, reading between the lines,

[Welcome, FDL readers! -- lambert]

The Challenge: get 15 Blue Dogs to vote Yes on HR 676.

Now to start showing up at Blue Dogs' Town Halls, wearing T-shirts that say Vote YES on HR 676, if you have to. If you get the chance to ask a question, and you should try very hard to get that chance, ask: Will you vote YES on HR 676?