Marc Stier At Large

March (and rally) to the Finish Line!

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.

Why are we marching to Washington? To show our leaders that they have lost touch with us.

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-02-07

• Back in the high life. #
• Seem to be having my semi-annual day of depression tonight #
• Sign up for a conference call on HCR w/ Sen Franken & HCAN's Richard Krirsch, Fri at 3 http://ping.fm/S5TrN #
• So, who's ready to walk to Washington for health care reform? #

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-01-31

• Yes, let's get health care reform done. And soon. #
• Bipartisanship: D and Rs always disagree about means. But the GOP sits on its hands when O articulates goals like creating jobs. #
• Go Jets! #

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To the top of the greasy pole: Why health care reform is so hard and what we should do about it now

Last night you heard President Obama say that we have to pass health care reform this year. Reports today that Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid are working on a plan to move the reform legislation through Congress.

I know that many of you are disappointed and angry that we have not yet succeeded. I am, too.

But I taught and studied American politics for many years before I became an activist, and I know that what we have seen in the 19 month long fight for health care reform is the usual course our politics takes on the most important questions.

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The Crooked Thing

To the woman who has me looped.

Brown Penny

I whispered, ‘I am too young,’
And then, ‘I am old enough’;
Wherefore I threw a penny
To find out if I might love.
‘Go and love, go and love, young man,
If the lady be young and fair.’
Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,
I am looped in the loops of her hair.
O love is the crooked thing,
There is nobody wise enough
To find out all that is in it,
For he would be thinking of love
Till the stars had run away
And the shadows eaten the moon.
Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,
One cannot begin it too soon.

W. B. Yeats

“Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing can ever be made.”

Immanuel Kant

I’ve loved this poem for a long time. But it was only a few years ago that I think I got it, when I noticed that the first line of the second stanza is probably a reference to the famous line of Immanuel Kant.

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-01-24

• Rally and march for Health Care Reform at 11:00 am, Love Park, Art museums steps at 11;45 RSVP http://bit.ly/8MKAOz #
• Rally and march for health care reform Saturday 11:00 am, Love Park and then run up the steps of the the Museum with your poster at 11:45. #
• @BradyDale Sapir-Whorf bogus: If we can't talk about all the kinds of snow for which Eskimos have words, we can't make the hypothesis. in reply to BradyDale #
• Health care reform in critical condition. Phone bank today 1-8 and tmw 10 to 7:30 for Martha Coakley at UFCW Local 1776, 3300 Walton Road. #

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Think: On the aftermath of Massachusetts II

The National Moment

In my previous post, I said that there is still a way forward to health care reform that is good if not great.

Having said all that, there is no question that after Massachusetts, Virginia and New Jersey statewide elections, after a decline in Obama’s popular support and in the Congressional poll numbers (where the Democrats are in a dead heat with Republicans, ten points below where they were a year ago), we Democrats are not doing as well right now as we were a year ago.

Why not?

There are two leading theories, which lead to two radically different conclusions about what Obama should do now.

The right is saying that Obama overreached and is trying to force major changes, and especially health care reform, on a country that did not elect him for that purpose.

The left is saying that Obama has compromise too much and has allowed the right to capture the anger against big business and insurance companies by not supporting tougher regulations against securities companies and single payer health care.

There is something correct about both arguments. But, by and large, I think the conclusions their proponents come to are mistaken.

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Breathe: On the aftermath of Massachusetts I

Breathe.

Take a step back.

You need to make sure you don’t get caught up in perhaps the most damaging features of our public life: our inability to look beyond the day’s news and put each day in perspective.

The world and American politics did not change dramatically last night. The prospects for health care reform are not all that different than they were yesterday.

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Phone bank for Martha Coakley!!!

The Massachusetts Senate election tomorrow is critical to the future of this country and especially to the future of health care reform. It’s likely to be a low turnout election, so everything we do here in Pennsylvania to help get Coakley supporters to the polls will make a big difference.

There are two local places where you can join phone banks to call likely Coakley supporters and urge them to vote tomorrow.

UFCW Local 1776, 3031A Walton Road, Plymouth Meeting, PA. 19462.
Now until 8:00 pm today and 10:00 am to 7:00 pm tomorrow.

Organizing for America PA Headquarters, 123 South Broad Street, Suite 820, Philadelphia, PA 19107
Shifts at 4:00 pm today; 10:00 am, 1:00 pm and 4:00 pm, tomorrow.

I don’t have to you how important this election is. Democrats have the bare minimum 60 votes we need to control the Senate. And, with Republicans determined to oppose what Democrats do no matter what, and a few conservative Democrats like Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson who are ready to break rangks, it is difficult enough to pass progressive legislation now.

If we lose the Massachusetts Senate seat and the 60th vote, it will become even more difficult to enact progressive legislation. At a time when we need to be more not less aggressive in dealing with all the difficulties we face—difficulties we inherited from years of Republican neglect—we need the 60th Democratic vote in the Senate.

Please join us for phone banking either today or tomorrow.

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-01-17

• "Dada cannot live in New York. All New York is dada, and will not tolerate a rival." – Man Ray #

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Health Care Will Be (Almost) a Right Not a Privilege

We progressives are distraught over losing something that is important to our vision of health care reform: a public option that would compete with private insurance and hold down health insurance costs. Make no mistake, that was, indeed a loss. But the public option was not the only important feature of the legislation we have been supporting. Indeed, while holding down costs are important to this country, the fundamental moral issue is making sure that everyone can get affordable health care. And, if the conference committee process goes as we expect, on that critical issue we are going to win a major victory.

The reform bills before Congress will take this country close to the ideal of making health care a right not a privilege.

They will make health insurance affordable for almost all Americans and do more to help working and middle class Americans than any government program since Social Security. And they will do more to improve the well-being of working age Americans than any government program in our entire history.

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What’s in and should be in the health care reform legislation

Note: this is about 1800 words long. You might want to print it out.

The health care reform legislation that will be enacted by Congress later this month contains a number a different elements. It’s not easy to grasp it in its entirety. But there are a few key parts that you should understand for two reasons: first, because there is still time to make the legislation better and second because you should understand how much this legislation will accomplish, even if it doesn’t contain everything we want.

Let me say one word on the last point before jumping into the details. We are not going to get everything we want in this legislation. But don’t let your disappointment about that blind you to how much we will accomplish, especially if we get most of the best provisions of the House and Senate bills in the final legislation.

• We will make insurance affordable for 30 million people who don’t have it now and that will save 10,000 to 20,000 lives a year and reduce the suffering of hundreds of thousands of people.
  
• We will enable individuals and small businesses to purchase insurance in a large pool, saving them a great deal of money.
  
• We will protect people from a wide range of insurance company abuses, including annual and lifetime limits on care and denials of coverage on the basis of pre-existing medical condition, sex, and, to some extent, age.
  

Even if we don’t get a public option, this is the most important and most progressive legislation enacted in forty years. And as I explain at the end of this piece, this legislation points the way to further reform.

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I wish you could have joined Georgeanne Koehler in Washington

There have been many moments in the campaign for health care reform that have been hard and frustrating. But two things have kept me going: the stories I’ve heard about people who are suffering or have died for lack of health insurance and the effort so many Pennsylvanians have made to push Congress to enact good reforms. I’ve been inspired again and again by these stories and by the hard, thankless work so many people have done on behalf of reform.

On December 17 I took part in an event that moved me more than anything else I’ve done in the 18 months of the campaign because it joined both of these elements.

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Holden needs to get his facts straight

Published in the Harrisburg Patriot-News, December 31, 2009
http://www.pennlive.com/editorials/index.ssf/2009/12/holden_needs_to_get_facts_stra.html

It’s sad but not unusual to find big insurance companies misleading people in their fight against health care reform.

But it’s distressing to see a member of Congress, Tim Holden (D-Schuylkill), repeating these same misleading claims to justify his vote against legislation that would benefit so many people in his district.

Congressman Holden said he voted against the health care reform bill because it included cuts to Medicare and Medicaid benefits. This is what the big insurance want people to believe. It is what their misleading TV ads directed toward seniors say. It is simply not true.

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-12-27

• np China Cat Sunflower > Rider March 2 87 #

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