give Americans universal healthcare

Health care reform is “a cruel hoax and a delusion.” 100 newspapers thunder that reform would mean “the beginning of socialized medicine.”

The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page predicts that the legislation will lead to “deteriorating service.” Business groups warn that Washington bureaucrats will invade “the privacy of the examination room,” that we are on the road to rationed care and that patients will lose the “freedom to choose their own doctor.”

All dire — but also wrong. Those forecasts date not from this year, but from the battle over Medicare in the early 1960s. Yet this year those same accusations are being recycled in an attempt to discredit the health reform proposals now before Congress. The heirs of those who opposed Medicare are conjuring the same bogymen — only this time they claim to be protecting Medicare.

Indeed, these same arguments we hear today against health reform were used even earlier, to attack President Franklin Roosevelt’s call for Social Security. It was denounced as a socialist program that would compete with private insurers and add to Americans’ tax burden so as to kill jobs.

Daniel Reed, a Republican representative from New York, predicted that with Social Security, Americans would come to feel “the lash of the dictator.” Senator Daniel Hastings, a Delaware Republican, declared that Social Security would “end the progress of a great country.”

John Taber, a Republican representative from New York, went further and said of Social Security: “Never in the history of the world has any measure been brought here so insidiously designed as to prevent business recovery, to enslave workers.”

In hindsight, it seems a bit ridiculous, doesn’t it? Social Security passed, and the republic survived.

Quoted from The New York Times: The Wrong Side of History
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/19/opinion/19kristof.html?_r=2&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1258995849-bhNobgbOgUghBDMZR3IToA

I made phone calls yesterday on behalf of the Health Care Reform bill in the house which will be voted on today. Calling the constitutes of key members of Congress, I am standing up to the millions of dollars the Blue Cross (Anthem), Kaiser, Humana, and other Insurance companies are spending to kill health care reform and the public option. If you still don’t know, the US is already paying 100 billion dollars a year for Medicare and other health care programs. Then states and local governments are paying millions or more for local hospitals and clinics in an inefficient network that is NOT doing the job of protecting American citizens.

That’s what this bill is about. Yes the bill is not perfect and there is waste inside the bill, but having people die from insurance company greed is worse and the loopholes can be closed later. All the billions of dollars we are paying now from employers insurance premiums, taxes, and deficit spending would be consolidated to pay for the program. We need this now. I can’t imagine wanting to be responsible for one more person dying due to the current “system” if this bill doesn’t pass. That’s why I am involved. Because I care.

I am making a sign which is a grave marker for friends and relatives I know that have died needlessly or had a shorter life because of the current medical system. Dropped coverage, refusal to cover, or financial problems have hurt and killed far too many people. Everyone including congress needs to see that real people have died, and that it is not hidden in some statistics. My aunt Regine died because Kaiser refused treatment for her that was labeled “experimental” and which had kept other leukemia patients alive. I will make a sign for her because the existing health care system let her down.

There are Healthcare reform rallies being held all over the country. If you care about your life and know someone like me who has died because they couldn’t get the health care they needed, you should go too. You can find a rally near you at:

http://pol.moveon.org/event/events/index.html?action_id=188

If socialized medicine is so bad, why do conservatives tolerate socialized fire fighting? Couldn’t you fight your own fires cheaper and stop subsidizing all those poor people who don’t pay their fair share? Who cares if the neighbor’s house burns down as long as you have yours protected? Didn’t Christ teach everyone to take care of yourself and let your neighbor drop dead if they aren’t rich enough to take care of themselves? We know that most of these Christian Conservatives are the ones spreading lies about a healthcare bill that isn’t even written yet. I guess Christ must have told them to tell any lie to fight the rights of minorities or to insure that the poor keep dying of preventable diseases.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/nov05election/detail?entry_id=46106#ixzz0PDF5yhVC

I called my congresswoman Grace Napolitano yesterday and told her staff how I felt. Later that same day she agreed to support only a fully inclusive plan for everyone and not just a watered down one proposed as a compromise. My call made a difference. Everyone whose goal is to make a difference can make a difference here by calling and letting the people who make the decisions know that you are watching what they do.

If I could create a healthcare bill for everyone, it wouldn’t be exactly like the one proposed in congress now…not even the best option of the bunch. But once we do have a Universal Healthcare bill, Congress will be forced to fix the problems and negotiate better rates through competitive bidding from the same companies which are fighting this new law now. People would never accept going back to the old system again.

In my mind it is a win-win situation for both people and businesses, because finally businesses can control their healthcare costs by having them fixed per employee by the government. Everyone will be required to pay into the system, but private insurance will still be available if people want it. The majority of people already insured will see no change about their coverage and should be happy because they can keep their own doctors with the new insurance, without the fear of losing that insurance as is the case now.

And one final thing about illegal aliens in our country. It is a problem yes, but it is a different issue from healthcare and needs to be dealt with separately. Conservatives tend to conveniently forget that fruit, vegetables and produce in your local supermarket would probably be double what it is now if all the illegal aliens were to be sent back. It is a benefit people rarely acknowledge among quite a few other things, but a fact of american life.

1/3 of Americans don’t have healthcare. Families with insurance are going bankrupt whenever someone has a serious illness and the Insurance companies cap their payments. It is just crazy and it needs to stop. Insurance companies, drug companies, and large healthcare firms want to keep their big profits, but the United States can’t afford it anymore. They are trying to scare everyone that we can’t afford Universal Care, when the rest of the world has had it for years. (Watch Sicko if you don’t believe me).

Anyone who has been to a hospital emergency room knows that the healthcare system is broken in America. Contact your elected representatives in congress today and tell them you want Universal Healthcare so healthcare can affordable for everyone in the US. We all should not have to be scared about the cost every time we get sick.

You can get more information on Barack Obama’s public involvement website Organizing For America. Barack is our president, but he needs as much support from us as possible to make this a reality:
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/healthcare/index.php