People, we all know we have got to pull out all the stops in support of a public option. Recommend every diary on this page related to this effort. Call your Senators, call other Senators, call Representatives. Let those against know they need to be for. Let those for know that they are valued.
In particular, if you can afford it, donate money to the organizations putting pressure on the Conservadems who are taking much money from the health non-care industry and in some cases shedding crocodile tears about the fact that "oh my, there aren't enough votes for the public option."
Change Congress (Lawrence Lessig's group)
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Others:
Democracy for America
ActBlue
MoveOn.org
We need to let Capitol Hill know that if "health care reform" passes without a strong public option, it's not reform, it's a lie. And we will be ANGRY, and we will lose faith, and we will support their opponents, and we will oppose them. In fact, with 76% of the public supporting a public option, they will face mass opprobrium.
My very brief speech today, delivered in front of Sen. Feinstein's office (building where it is), short and better heard rather than read:
"Hello. Thanks to all the organizers and to MoveOn.org for pulling together this rally.
We are here to stand for a public option. We are here to stand against the health non-care industry that cuts out people on the front end, denies coverage on the back end, and gets rich doing it.
My sister died two years ago from malignant melanoma. Her real health battle over a big span of her life, though, was with multiple sclerosis, a debilitating neurological autoimmune disorder.
Her story is involved. I can’t share it all. I just wanted to provide a basic picture, the pattern of which will be familiar to anyone who has had anything to do with our system as it is. A lot of people pay into this system, thinking that when they really need it to be there for them, it will be. That’s the promise they’re given. And it’s a big ugly lie for far too many people.
When my sister first went in to a neurologist, replete with symptoms of multiple sclerosis, her doctor spent some time with her, noted her symptoms and then said with anguish, "I can’t diagnose you with multiple sclerosis though you probably have it. I could run more tests and prove that you have it, but then you’d be marked with a pre-existing condition. You wouldn’t get coverage moving forward. And I don’t have cures or terribly effective treatments for you."
The doctor continued. "I have experience with this," he said. "I have diagnosed other patients in roughly the same situation previously. By so doing, I made their lives much worse. If at all possible, I avoid diagnosing it now unless my patient’s condition is so bad that I have no other choice."
So this doctor told my sister to wait until her symptoms continued to get worse, until he had no choice but to intervene. Several months later, going blind one weekend, she called him and told him what was going on. He diagnosed her, finally, so he could do a radical intervention to save her eyesight.
This is the system we have now. And this is the system we will continue to have if we don’t get a public option.
My sister paid into that system for 15 years of her adult life. But when she needed it, she couldn’t depend on that system going forward. Lucky for her she ran into a compassionate physician who knew how ugly that system could be, who had to NOT diagnose her and to NOT treat her in order to help her.
The primary medical ethic says "first, do no harm" and this doctor was abiding by that. He was protecting my sister from the harm that the health care industry would do.
This is what we are up against. The current system profits not by treating people, but by cutting them out when they need treatment. Cutting them out on the front end. Denying coverage on the back end. And getting rich by providing the minimal amounts of care to people who need it, relatively speaking, the least.
Any so-called health care reform that doesn’t include a robust public option will give us more of the same. If the politicians pass a plan and they tell you it’s health care reform but it doesn’t include a robust public option, they are lying to you.
We need the public option to turn the system on it’s head, to re-orient the system so it’s not about weeding out on the front end, denying coverage on the back end, and paying vast profits to the guys that run this non-health-care operation. We need the system to be about providing cost-effective, solid health care to all.
And now people, it is crunch time. It is time to make our voices heard, to let the politicians know that nothing short of a strong public option is acceptable.
Attend more of these rallies. Call Congress. Talk to your neighbors. Turn up the heat, people. Public Option Now. Public Option Now. Public Option Now."