Our nyceve broke the very exciting news this morning that Moveon.org, HCAN, DFA, SEIU, and Progressive Congress are onboard with us for the 1,000,000 Voices To Congress Health Care Campaign!
That finish line is within sight. We need your help to make it across that finish line for millions of Americans who desperately need health care reform!
Will you please help join us in letting Congress hear your voices LOUD AND CLEAR on the need to finish their job on health care reform?
PLEASE TELL US IF YOU'LL BRING YOUR FRIENDS ABOARD FOR THE 1,000,000 VOICES VIRTUAL MARCH ON D.C.!
As Washington plays politics as usual instead of fixing our broken system, people are dying. Americans simply cannot wait for comprehensive health care reform - it's time for Democrats to stand up to Big Insurance and their conservative allies, and get reform done right. During the Virtual March for Real Health Care Reform, we'll send a million messages to Congress to make sure they know that voters want them to get to work and get health care done.
Passing comprehensive healthcare reform is both good politics and good policy.
Polling of the people who voted for Obama in 2008 and for Republican Scott Brown in 2010 shows that 82% of them support a public option: they believe the failure in DC is that Democrats are not aggressive enough in fighting for them.
Our nation’s health care crisis is not an incremental problem and cannot be fixed with incremental solutions.
We cannot ban denials for pre-existing conditions without mandates; we cannot institute mandates without providing subsidies; and we cannot provide subsidies without raising revenue. All the most popular elements of true meaningful reform are intertwined.
Public option is gaining momentum.
Support in the Senate for using reconciliation to pass a public option is growing by the day. Currently 18 Senators have signed a letter in support of using reconciliation to pass a public option. In addition, whip counts show that there are the votes needed to pass a public option. In the House, more than 118 members have signed a similar letter.
On the day of the bipartisan summit, we all know Republicans still have no good ideas for health care reform, and that they will continue to be the party of "No, We Can't!" while we'll continue to be the party of "Yes, We Can!" Krugman's right in his editorial today when he writes this:
So California’s woes show that conservative prescriptions for health reform just won’t work.
What would work? By all means, let’s ban discrimination on the basis of medical history — but we also have to keep healthy people in the risk pool, which means requiring that people purchase insurance. This, in turn, requires substantial aid to lower-income Americans so that they can afford coverage.
And if you put all of that together, you end up with something very much like the health reform bills that have already passed both the House and the Senate.
What about claims that these bills would force Americans into the clutches of greedy insurance companies? Well, the main answer is stronger regulation; but it would also be a very good idea, politically as well as substantively, for the Senate to use reconciliation to put the public option back into its bill.
It's time for Washington to stop stalling---tell them to finish their job on the 24th! Here's how it's going to work here as laid out by nyceve:
The 1,000,000 Voices campaign will be rolled out to the media starting on Monday. We'll keep you advised of all developments as they happen.
On the morning of Wednesday, February 24th, either slinkerwink or I will post a diary, which we will ask you to please keep alive and on the rec list all day and into the evening.
We'll ask you to sign in on Daily Kos, once you do that, you'll be seamlessly directed to MoveOn.
On the MoveOn 1,000,000 Voices Virtual March on Washington web site, which will go live early in the morning of February 24th, you'll be able to use their incredible tools to contact Congress and the Senate and to take the action of your choice--call, email, fax or write. We ask you to sign in on Daily Kos so that we'll know and give you frequent tallies throughout the day and night of the number of Kossacks who are participating in the Virtual March.
And here's how we'll get this job done on February 24th, the day President Obama holds his bipartisan summit!
Each organization will ask its members to call, email, fax, or write a letter. If you decide to call, you'll be offered talking points. You're free to use them or not, whatever moves you. Just take an action--call, email, fax, letter--it's all about 1,000,000 contacts on February 24th.
These are the talking points which resonate with us. You're free to use them or not, it's your choice.
The call-in effort will be to ask for these items below in the reconciliation fix, and directing these calls at the House and the Senate.
* Inclusion of the public option
* The Medicare buy-in
* Fixing the excise tax
* Getting rid of the Nebraska Cornhusker Kickback deal
* National exchange
* Drug re-importation
* Drug price negotiation in Medicare Part D
* Increasing subsidies.
Why are we aiming high?
Because we need to do our best, and always fight to the end in making this Senate bill better.
On the other hand, if you believe the best route to getting a bill passed is for the House to simply vote to pass the Senate Bill, you are free to make that your "ask". And we thank you too, for participating.
All we ask, is that you take an action.
CLICK TO JOIN UP WITH US TO BE READY FOR THIS MASSIVE DAY OF ACTION ON THE 24TH!
Thank you for joining the 1,000,000 Voices Virtual March on Washington campaign, and tell your friends to join as well!
Disclosure:
The funds donated to the Progressive Congress Action Fund, a 501(c)4 non-profit organization headed by Darcy Burner, will be used to advocate on behalf of the progressive agenda, to advance progressive legislation, and may include payments to individuals engaged in fund raising.