The bill we are supporting in Washington is not perfect. It’s not what I’ve worked for in the last twenty months. But it will save tens of thousands of lives, keep hundreds of thousands out of bankruptcy, reduce the suffering of millions, and improve the living standard and reduce the anxiety of tens of millions. And like all the other half-way measures and compromised bills that have characterized American reform efforts, including the Social Security Act of 1935 and the Medicare Act of 1965, it will create its own pressure for expansion and further reform.
First, under the legislation, the federal government as well as individuals will bear the burden of increasing insurance premiums. So to avoid the tax increases needed to pay for higher subsidies, there will be pressure to create a public option to provide the competition needed to hold those premium increases down.
Second, once the principle of subsidizing health insurance premiums is established, there will be continuous pressure to increase the subsidies and offer them to more and more of the population.
Third, there will be continuous political pressure to raise the standards for the health insurance plans covered in the Exchanges.
And fourth, the Exchanges will gradually be opened to those who work for large businesses which means that it will eventually include everyone.
So over time, almost all of us will purchase health insurance in the heavily regulated Exchanges, more and more of us will purchase it from a public insurance company or genuine non-profits, and a greater share of our premiums will be covered by tax dollars.
We may or may not get to single payer that way. But France and Germany have the best health care systems in the world and they don’t have single payer. They have hybrid systems that have multiple, heavily regulated insurers and in which insurance is paid in part by employers and employees but mostly by the state.
We might get to single payer eventually. But if we get to France and Germany, as a result of the legislation we can enact this week, that will be OK too.
Tue, March 16 2010 » Health Care » No Comments
The final vote on health care reform is going to be close. And Dennis Kucinich may be the one vote between victory and defeat.
Kucinich says he won’t vote for the bill because it is a bail out of insurance companies and is not his preferred way of reforming health care, single payer.
So far, only a very few advocates for single payer, who could have substantial influence over Kucinich, has asked him to vote for the bill. As far as I know, no one from Pennsylvania, which has one of the most active and impressive movements for single payer, has asked him to support the bill. As far as I know, Pennsylvania single payer advocates like Walter Tsou and Chuck Pennachio have said that the legislation should be defeated.
This is very hard for me to understand for a few reasons.
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Tue, March 16 2010 » Health Care » 2 Comments
I’m working pretty much night and day to get health care reform enacted in Washington, DC. Health care reform is, I believe, going to pass, although it’s going to be close in the House. But I just realized what passing health care reform in Washington might mean for our efforts in Pennsylvania.
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Sun, March 14 2010 » Health Care » 1 Comment
After 20 months, this part of our campaign for quality, affordable health care for all is coming to an end. We are fairly sure the critical vote in the House of Representatives will take place by Saturday.
The vote will be very close, and health care reform won’t be enacted without an outpouring of grassroots energy that can overcome the powerful insurance company interests that are trying to block it.
So many of you in Pennsylvania have been doing so much for so long. Over the last three weeks, Pennsylvanians have led the way at two events in Washington. Hundreds of you joined us for the end of Melanie’s March and for the exciting anti- health insurance company rally last week.
But whether you have been an active participant in the campaign or not, I must ask you to do everything you can in this crucial last week to make our dream a reality.
Phone banking
Four Democratic members of the House, Representatives Altmire (CD 4), Carney (CD 10), Dahlkemper (CD 3), and Kanjorski (CD 11) are being hammered by paid advertising and phone calls. We need to encourage their constituents to call them this week and tell them to support health care reform.
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Sun, March 14 2010 » Health Care » No Comments
We are now in the last week of our campaign. Health care reform legislation will come up for a critical yes or no vote in the House of Representatives by the end of the week.
The health care bill is, we know, not all we wanted. Some key elements of reform, such as the public option, are missing. But the elements that remain are still critical for America, not just because of the millions of people the legislation will help but because it will set the stage for further reform down the road. I want to quickly review the key elements of the bill here and then answer a few common charges against it that come from the left
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Sun, March 14 2010 » Health Care » 1 Comment
Sun, March 14 2010 » About me » No Comments
As a political science teacher for twenty five years, I argued that the mainstream media was not systematically biased against progressives.
I was wrong. But I’m still not sure what the problem is.. I don’t know if it is the economic interests of publishers—which I still kind of doubt is important; or the fact that political reporters have a vested interest in making politicians and citizens seem even more divided than they really; are or whether the habitual skepticism of reporters makes them focus more on the likelihood of failure than the possibility of success. And maybe all of these factors are exacerbated because political reporters really only have the time to understand the gross politics of issues rather than the details of politics or policy.
But for one or another of these reasons, most of the news reports about health care reform in the mainstream media, and certainly in the Philadelphia Inquirer, have been unwarrantedly negative or selectively misleading about the prospects for health care reform. .
The latest examples in the Washington press is the utter inability of the mainstream media to understand the difference between doing health care reform through reconciliation and fixing the Senate bill through reconciliation.
At the Inquirer, things have been a little better, but not much. The paper has consistently given the misleading impression that there is a national uprising against the Obama plan.
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Mon, March 8 2010 » Uncategorized » No Comments
Sun, March 7 2010 » About me » No Comments
Sun, February 28 2010 » About me » No Comments
There has never been a time in the fifty four years of my life when political action is more important and can have a greater impact on our future. That’s why I’m marching to Washington today and urging you to take join Melanie’s March To the Finish Line.
Before I became a full time political organizer three years ago, I taught political philosophy and American politics for twenty five years.
Like most people trained in philosophy and the political and social sciences, I’ve always been somewhat dubious about the ability of people to bend history. Most of the time, I believe, the forces that shape history overwhelm what we do as individuals. That’s true for Presidents and Congressional leaders. And it’s even more true for citizens.
That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t act politically. Historical forces act through us But, for most of my life, as someone who was an activist in the interstices of my intellectual work, I have not believed that I have helped shape events. Rather, I believe I have played my part in a drama that I did write. And for much of my life, since the late 1970s, I’ve not been happy about who or what forces wrote the political drama of our collective life in America. While we have made progress in some areas in the last thirty years—in moving toward sexual equality, in expanding opportunities for racial minorities, and in the growing acceptance of people in the LGBT community. But in most respects, and certainly with regard to growing inequality of economic opportunity in America, the last thirty years have been a time of retreat and disappointment.
In the last few years it has seemed that new historical forces had arisen and that a new dramatist would write the script for the next ten or twenty years of our common life.
I believe that still to be true. But even more importantly, I believe that what you and I do in the next few days and weeks will determine who and what forces will write the political drama of the next era in American history.
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Mon, February 22 2010 » Health Care, National, Progressive Politics » No Comments
I’m not getting as much time on Melanie’s March, our march from Philadelphia to Washington, DC for health care as I would like. I’m driving back to Philadelphia in the evening so that I can spend late nights and early mornings with a fast computer and internet connection that enables me to edit video, update this website and stay in contact with all the wonderful people who are organizing events down the line for us. I’m getting back to the March mid-day or sometimes later and only getting a few miles in.
But I’m there enough to know how hard the march is physically both because of the mileage and, especially on the first three days, because sidewalks were so often snow covered.
So, last night, as I had dinner with the marchers I kept thinking about how important they are to the health care campaign and how heroic they are for taking this task on. And I wondered about the source of their heroism.
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Sun, February 21 2010 » A political memoir, Health Care, Uncategorized » No Comments
Sun, February 21 2010 » About me » No Comments
Sun, February 14 2010 » About me » No Comments
A group of Pennsylvanians are Marching from Philadelphia to Washington, DC between February 17 and 24 in honor of Melanie Shouse. This is why.
Recently, our friend, Melanie Shouse lost a long battle with breast cancer after missing out on critical treatment because she, like thousands of others, could not find affordable health insurance.
Melanie did everything she could to fight for health care, not just for herself, but for all of us. President Obama, who knew Melanie as a volunteer on his campaign, said: “She was fighting that whole time not just to get me elected, not even to get herself health insurance, but because she understood that there were others coming behind her who were going to find themselves in the same situation and she didn’t want somebody else going through that same thing.” It was a long road for Melanie, but she never gave up.
A lot of us are frustrated that, after mobilizing for over a year to reform health care, rein in Wall Street, create good jobs, win workers’ rights, and combat global warming, we are still waiting for the change we voted for. But we’re not giving up either. A group of Pennsylvanians, some with health care issues of their own, decided to march 135 miles from Philadelphia to Washington in honor of Melanie, carrying her message to the Members of Congress who need to hear it the most.
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Sat, February 13 2010 » Health Care » No Comments
The fight for health care reform is continuing. Join us at two events as we ratchet up our campaign to enact health care reform in the next two months.
A major rally in Philadelphia at a place still to be determined in Center City on Wednesday, February 17 at 12:00 noon. Click here to RSVP.
March to the Finish Line, a march of health care activists from Philadelphia to Washington beginning at the rally and ending up in at the Capitol on Wednesday, February 24th right before President Obama’s health care summit. Click here to sign up for any part of the march.
Why are we marching to Washington? To show our leaders that they have lost touch with us.
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Mon, February 8 2010 » Health Care » No Comments