I like this, even if it is only symbolic in nature. I like it even more if Obama and his administration listen.
In between the tree trimming and gift-giving, President-elect Barack Obama is inviting Americans to spend part of the holiday season talking about health care — and report back to him.
As he gears up for major health reform legislation next year, Obama is encouraging average Americans to host informal gatherings to brainstorm about how to improve the U.S. system.
"In order for us to reform our health care system, we must first begin reforming how government communicates with the American people ," Obama said in a statement yesterday. "These Health Care Community Discussions are a great way for the American people to have a direct say in our health reform efforts."
WaPO
More, after the fold.
The Obama administration is serious about health care reform.
Dec. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Former U.S. Senator Tom Daschle, the top health policy adviser to President-elect Barack Obama, said reworking the U.S. health-care system is a necessary part of an economic recovery plan.
High health costs hurt the ability of U.S. businesses to stay competitive and create new jobs, making it a "top priority" that health-system changes not be delayed, said Daschle, speaking today in Denver at a health-care forum.
snip
"That’s what makes this so urgent and so much a part of the economic recovery process," Daschle said. "I believe that for the first time in American history, health-care reform will be done."
Daschle Says U.S. Health-Care Overhaul Will Help Spur Economy
Yes, a top priority for our economy and our well being:
President-Elect Obama has made clear that health reform is a top priority -- not only because all Americans deserve quality, affordable care, but because it's essential to getting the economy back on track.
"Our long-term fiscal prospects will have a hard time improving as long as sky-rocketing health care costs are holding us all down," [Daschle] said. "These health care community discussions are a great way for the American people to have a direct say in our health care reform efforts."
change.gov
And even better, they want input from ordinary people, not just from business and from experts:
As a harbinger of how an Internet presidency could take form, former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle — who may be nominated as the next Health and Human Services secretary as early as next week — has embarked on a new format for leading the charge on new health care policies, online and off.
In Denver today at a health care summit organized by Democratic Senator Ken Salazar, Mr. Daschle announced that the Obama team will be coordinating a series of "Health Care Community Discussions" around the country during the last two weeks of this month. This effort would be an extension, or perhaps a subset, of the Obama transition team’s forays into harnessing that vast grassroots network it built during the campaign as it tries to channel the diffuse but palpable energetic force into a newly formed, broader-based good.
New York Times
The Washington Post provides some reasons why this is politically smart:
By applying the high-tech tools and grass-roots activism that helped him win the White House, Obama hopes to circumvent many of the traditionally powerful special interests that have quashed previous health-care reform efforts.
Obama Asks Nation for Input On Reforming Health System
We will have a built in base of public support for the plan Obama chooses, because ordinary people have been a part of the process. And he will need that support, for the insurance companies have shown they will oppose real reform, even opposing a public component of a universal insurance plan.
For me, the real battle is there. I think single payer is coming, but maybe not now. Others of good faith disagree and think now is the time to obtain single payer. I think we need this public component of a univeral health care plan to show people that government health care is not scary and to force insurance companies to compete with it.
Here's how to sign up if you are interested:
Health care is a top priority for President-elect Obama, and he wants your help in reforming the system to provide quality, affordable health care for all Americans. That's why this holiday season, we're asking you to give us the gift of your ideas and input.
Sign up to host a Health Care Community Discussion anytime from December 15th to 31st.
We'll provide all our hosts with special moderator kits that will give you everything you need to get the discussion going. And Senator Tom Daschle, the leader of the Transition's Health Policy Team, will even choose one discussion to attend in person.
Sign up to host a health care community discussion over the holidays
I hope you sign up. I'm prety sure Nyceve will be at one! :-)
The other aspect of this I like is the bottom up orientation. No, I'm not so naive to think that a whole lot will change from these discussions, although some changes may happen. It's possible. But even symbolism matters in changing a dysfunction system and culture. Involving the people says that it is the people, and not just business and experts, who matter. That is REAL CHANGE.
Update: A brilliant idea from DemocracyLover in NYC.
We can do it on the front page if Markos likes the idea or on the backpages here in an Open Thread diary we put on the Rec List.
let's do this together... (1+ / 0-)
Recommended by: TomP
We've been prepping for this for a long time. We have lots of existing ideas for policy. Why not hold the discussion here? This is our community, geographically and temporally distributed as it may be. These are the people I find most interesting to develop ideas with.
We can create our own hosted discussion for koslings and other netroots folks Then we can submit online. So we can create a "kos" discussion that takes place here.
Can we host a Health Care Community discussion online between Dec 15th and Dec 31st? How would that work? We could do it with diaries, comments and using "mojo" to rate ideas. Or we could use a platform like mixedink
or another collaborative authoring tool to host our discussion and authoring proces.
I think there has been a lot of conversation already. We have good policy people on the site who could lead this discussion.
What do you think?
by DemocracyLover in NYC on Sat Dec 06, 2008 at 08:06:20 AM PST
That comment deserves mojo, and more importantly, feedback from kossaks with ideas of how to make it happen:
DemocracyLover in NYC