Tag Archives: Universal Health Care

Economy, Environment

Little Non-Election Stuff In Bullet-Point Fashion

4 Comments

• According to Dan Walters, all his serious economist friends are telling him there’s no recession yet, theoreticaly speaking.  He might want to read his own paper, about how the Employment Development Department can’t keep up with the demand for unemployment benefits and everyone calling in is getting a busy signal.  Tip to those who apparently aren’t feeling a recession: use the EDD website.

• In a reversal to the Bush Administration, a judge has ruled that George Bush cannot exempt the Navy from environmental laws regarding the use of sonar within 12 miles of the California coast.  Not that Bush followed the ruling of the judiciary the first time, but…

• There are still high hopes for an end to the WGA strike, and meetings in Los Angeles and New York have been scheduled for the weekend (ostensibly to present the contract), but caution lies ahead, as more foreign imports and reality television are likely to wind up on schedules, and less pilots are likely to be shot.  Of course, this was my point all along, and why I underscored the need to grow the union for the benefit of everyone involved and give everything on television the opportunity to unionize.  But jurisdiction for reality and animation was dropped in the most recent round of talks, and there will be consequences to that.

• Our friends at the SEIU are going to start a $75 million dollar, year-long, national campaign in support of universal health care.  I have to think that this is a positive by-product of the coalition built in California around the ultimately unsuccessful effort on health care reform.  If so, then there was nothing unsuccessful about it.  It’s very exciting to see a full media and ground effort to draw the policy distinctions on health care between the parties, and to advocate for a system that makes sense for working families.

Use this as a repository for everything but the election.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Health Care

Health Care Reform Effort Appears To Flatline

8 Comments

((bumped, as reports come in of AB X 1 1 failing 10-1 in committee.  In the end, even Don Perata announced that he could not support the bill. – promoted by David Dayen)

It looks like the dream of major health care reform is over in California, at least for this year.  The LA Times reports:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s yearlong effort to arrange medical insurance for nearly all Californians will be rejected by a state Senate panel this afternoon, according to people familiar with the decision.

The move would effectively kill one of the governor’s most ambitious policy goals.

Senate President Don Perata (D-Oakland) made the decision after canvassing Democratic senators over the weekend and finding almost no support for the measure, which the Assembly passed last month.

There was some thought that Perata would use some parliamentary maneuvers to ensure the bill’s passage, but apparently he couldn’t find anyone to create a majority for the measure.

Anthony York openly wonders whether or not this spells the end of the current leadership structure in the state Legislature.

But watching the California Legislature in action last week felt like watching the end of an era — and bearing witness to the creation of a power vacuum. In a political ballet that played out over several days, the prospects for two seemingly unrelated but intimately connected political issues — a healthcare reform bill and a change in the state’s term-limits law — withered simultaneously. And as their fortunes sank, so did the power of the current legislative leadership […]

Then more bad news for the healthcare bill. Mid-afternoon Wednesday, Gloria Negrete McLeod (D-Chino) announced that she too was voting against the legislation, citing concerns about the affordability of the mandated insurance.After her vote, a senator who sits on the committee characterized the situation as a “total implosion.” He told me that the rumored poll numbers on Proposition 93 were making it harder to get the healthcare bill out of committee. If the prospects for the initiative’s passage were as bad as the numbers suggested, he said, the stigma of a lame duck, and a corresponding loss of influence, might attach to Perata and Nuñez.

Let me say that health care reform may end in California for now, but it does not end nationally, and indeed one has little effect on the other.  This is still something in which Americans are broadly in favor.  And it’s still a framework that every Democratic candidate has laid out.  With a new Democratic President, health care reform will be at the top of the agenda, and at the federal level it has a far greater chance of being fiscally sustainable.  There are still significant measures that could be taken in California that would improve conditions, in particular mandating guaranteed issue and expanding public programs.  But the perils and pitfalls of balancing an enormous overhaul on an unsteady budgetary picture proved too great.

UPDATE: Ezra Klein, echoing a familiar theme:

I’m not shocked, or even particularly saddened, by this. It never really looked to me like the finances worked out, and though the political coalition around the bill was heartening and impressive, the rabid dead-enders of the Californian GOP (they’re actually worse than national Republicans) wouldn’t allow even a cent of new money, and without a truly stable funding source, you really can’t do this at the state level. Indeed, money is why all these state plans fail. For fiscal reasons, this has to be a federal initiative. Because states are more politically flexible than the federal government, they can often seem a more viable arena for health reform. But the policies always collapse.

Health Care

No Health Care Vote Today

1 Comment

Apparently Sen. Perata needs some more time to rearrange the chairs on the Senate Health Committee.

Sheila Kuehl, Chair of the California Senate Health Committee that is holding a hearing on AB X1 1, the Nunez-Schwarzenegger health coverage bill, has just announced that a vote on the bill by the committee will not take place until Monday. She announced that the delay in the vote on the bill was requested by Senate President pro Tem Don Perata, who is a coauthor of the bill […]

The building is rife with rumors as to Senators being asked to step down from the committee or asking to be taken off of it, and other procedural moves to get the bill out of the committee. With vote postponed, that gives additional time to possibly amend the bill, change the committee membership, and for those on one side or the other of the issue to bombard their Senators with calls, emails, and visits. The outcome is unknown as well as whether Perata will take extraordinary measures to move the bill.

With the LAO report today giving little cover to those pushing the reform (if the average premium is $300 per person, as the LAO expects, the program is underfunded in the first year), and both Kuehl, Yee, and possibly Gloria McLeod wavering, obviously some serious efforts are being made to turn this ship around.  The SF Chronicle had a very good article about this today.

Stay tuned.  It should be a wild weekend in the Capitol.

Health Care

The Insurance Industry Power Grab–CA and Nationally

Should government mandate the purchase of for-profit insurance products, backed up by threats to garnish wages or place a lien on homes?  Or should we move to a guaranteed healthcare system modeled on the single-payer financing that is working in Taiwan, Canada, and most of Europe?  

This very interesting debate is happening simultaneously at the national and state levels-because mandated insurance is the top priority of the insurance industry, and they’re pushing it everywhere they can.  

We’ll take a look below…cross-posted at the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association’s Breakroom Blog, as we organize for GUARANTEED healthcare on the single-payer model.

In California, Arnold Schwarzenegger and most of the state’s insurers have lined up with Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez to push a mandate law through.  Its future is uncertain.  

At the Presidential level, Sens. Clinton and Edwards are attacking Sen. Obama for declining to endorse their mandate.  Obama rightly argues that people don’t have health insurance not because they don’t want it, but because they can’t afford it.  A difficult argument to make in a sound-bite world, but the right one.

The big Schwarzenegger/Nunez healthcare compromise is going for a hearing and a vote before the Senate Health Committee tomorrow.  No doubt the insurance lobbyists are working overtime to call in their chits.  At least one paper, the San Jose Mercury News, argues the Governor is “misplaying” his hand and “making a bad bet” with his healthcare bill.  Agreed.  They state:

The governor’s proposed budget cuts, which will do considerable damage to a health care system already in crisis, are only exacerbating the political challenge of passing his reforms.

(This editorial has one major factual error-saying that insurance corporations oppose the Schwarzenegger/Nunez bill.  In fact, major CA insurer but one is backing the bill.)

New American Media, a coalition of ethnic news sources, lists the top 5 Reasons ABX11 is a sham, and even reps from the insurance industry thinks it could go down.

Meanwhile, Massachusetts residents are learning what it’s like to live where the purchase of junk insurance is mandated by the power of the state: it’s a kick in the groin:

THE NEARLY 300,000 Massachusetts residents who signed up for health insurance under the state’s new initiative are in for a rude awakening. They may now have some form of coverage, but many of them, even the very poor who used to get free care, are going to be socked with steep medical bills.

Simultaneously, the mandate debate continues to roil the Presidential.  I’ll point out what Sen. Obama won’t–that an individual mandate is the top priority of the insurance industry right now, and that it will end our chance to achieve guaranteed, single-payer healthcare, by giving insurance companies more power and degrading group purchase of insurance.

And Ian Welsh just wants everyone to repeat after him: single-payer is cheaper than what we’ve got now (or would get under mandates.)

Lets not forget that small businesses across the country are being forced into bankruptcy by predatory insurance corporations protecting their huge health insurance profits.  We want more of that?

UPDATE: Please keep an eye out for the announcements from several major California unions that they oppose ABX1.1!

Health Care

Guaranteed Healthcare Update, Nevada to America

Healthcare’s the hot topic in Nevada…California…insurance industry profit reports…and everywhere!

..cross-posted at the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association’s Breakroom Blog, as we organize for GUARANTEED healthcare on the single-payer model.

First up, Marc Cooper writes at Off the Bus that the healthcare debate is getting hot in Nevada:

Obama also complained that his supporters were getting calls and fliers from Clinton supporters accusing his health care plan of leaving 15 million Americans uninsured. Obama brushed aside the charge and then proceeded to criticize President Clinton and Hillary Clinton for attempting health care reform “the wrong way” last decade. “They went behind closed doors to do it and allowed lobbyists the and health care industry to shape the plan and eventually kill it.”

The New York Times concurs:

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, of New York, and John Edwards, the former North Carolina senator, said they would require all Americans to get coverage and would provide subsidies to that end, while Senator Barack Obama, of Illinois, says that as president he would require only children to have coverage. Mr. Obama’s plan would require employers to provide coverage or contribute to a new public program.

Note that word “requires.”  The Times is buying into the framing of the insurance industry, and their proposal to solve the healthcare crisis by an “individual mandate”-requirement-that everyone purchase expensive, for-profit insurance products.  

Remember, health insurance corporations increased their profits 9 percent in the first six months of the year-that’s $3.8 billion profit on $8.8 billion income.  That’s, what, $20 million in insurance industry profits from healthcare EVERY DAY!  No wonder we’re in crisis.   Because they’re making record profits.

Meanwhile, the coalition of the willing (to sell patients out for insurance corporation profits) is breaking up in California.  Yay!  

In New Mexico, Bill Richardson joins the list of people who dismiss guaranteed, single-payer healthcare, while the Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce is licking it chops over individual mandates.

Health Care

Arresting Patients for Healthcare Advocacy!!

17 Comments

Okay, this is an extraordinary photo of a beyond-the-pale moment: Steve Maviglio, the Deputy Chief of Staff to Fabian Nunez, the Speaker of the California Assembly, directing Capitol police to arrest an un-insured patient for speaking to the media about healthcare reform.  That’s Maviglio on the far right, and Jerry Flanagan from ConsumerWatchDog in the middle.

Conversations with press like this happen every day, every hour in the Capitol; it’s why the building exists.

But I guess most conversations aren’t on the subject of the insurance industry’s number one priority-which is to pass an “individual mandate” law.  And most conversations don’t happen as a gigantic fake healthcare reform bill seems to be careening to an ugly defeat.

Which is why most conversations don’t end with patients being cited for a misdemeanor.

We’ll tell what happened and why, below

…cross-posted at the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association’s Breakroom Blog, as we organize for GUARANTEED healthcare on the single-payer model.

It’s a good news-bad news situation.

The bad news is that the insurance industry has convinced some politicians on their payroll to hop aboard the individual mandate train, and pass a law requiring every person in the state to buy one of their products-no matter the cost or the quality.  The train’s rolling here in California, for a test run, before it goes national.

The good news is this bill is about to collapse, and this could well end this nasty little trend in healthcare reform, and open the door to replacing insurance companies altogether with universal, non-profit, single-payer coverage.  The kind that works in every other industrialized democracy.

Meet Ron Norton.  He’s on the far left in the picture, looking confused as to why Speaker Nunez thinks he’s a threat to the Capitol.  He’s been victimized by the Mitt Romney plan in Massachusetts, which is the basis for the Schwarzenegger, Clinton, and other individual mandate plans…and here’s what he’s got to say:

I’m Ron Norton, an adjunct professor of radiology and an administrator at a Quinsigamond Community College in Worcester, Massachusetts. But like 66% of our community college teachers, I’m considered an independent contractor and don’t get health insurance.

“After a few years of making about $21,000, I made closer to $40,000 last year because I’m also doing an administrative job. Under the Massachusetts insurance law my family won’t get subsidy because even though my wife has health insurance with her employer, her income is counted against my eligibility.

“Her small employer doesn’t offer family insurance. I imagine lots of California families are in the same situation.

“I’m 47 and have no health problems but the cheapest individual plan available in Massachusetts is $234 a month. That’s 6.8% of my salary. That “cheap” plan has a $2,000 per person pushing the cost up to 12.7% of my gross salary. Even if I bought the policy I still wouldn’t have affordable health care, and the number of doctors is very limited.

“I have a daughter, and it gets much worse if I want to insure her. The cheapest plan for the two of us is $440 a month, $5280 a year. That’s 11.6% of my income alone. The cheapest medium-range plan – without the huge deductibles – is $632 a month, nearly 20% of my own salary.

Details, details.  Doesn’t he know how much money these insurers have paid politicians to support their bill?

Hopefully, and apparently, not enough, as Capitol rumors are abounding now that the Schwarzenegger-Nunez bill is DOA.  Some reasons why:

First-the California Nurses Association has begun major advertising against it.  People generally people trust RNs more than insurance companies on healthcare issues.

Second-It’s becoming clear that voters don’t like this particular mandate. (Warning; .pdf, of poll.)

Third-California’s in a heap of budget trouble, and now is not the right time for multi-billion dollar public subsidies to already-profitable insurance corporations.

Fourth-the “insiders’ coalition” is breaking apart.  I mean, who really deep down likes insurance corporations?

Fifth-Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts plan is emerging as a total loser.

We might a few more arrests along the way, but we can see the light, and build a template for stopping fake healthcare reform and winning guaranteed healthcare. Or, as we sometimes call it, CheneyCare.

Everybody in, nobody out, nothing less.

Health Care

Hundreds of Reasons to Oppose ABX11

1 Comment

The California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee put out a simple call for a petition last week, demanding access for our patients to CheneyCare, the guaranteed, non-profit, quality healthcare available to Dick Cheney.  (Sign up if you haven’t already.)

What we didn’t expect was the hundreds of people who would write in with their stories of abuse at the hands of the insurance corporations.  This is a heart-breaking window into the pain and heartache that insurers inflict on America.  And now ABX11 would require everyone to purchase insurance products from these same corporations who are already ripping people off?  That’s nuts.

…cross-posted at the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association’s Breakroom Blog, as we organize for GUARANTEED healthcare on the single-payer model.

What’s happening out there in the wide wide world of guaranteed healthcare reform…

The California Nurses Association is working to end ABX1 1, the “fake” healthcare reform proposal floating around Sacramento.  That bill was crafted by insurers and features an “individual mandate’–wonk talk for a law forcing people to purchase expensive insurance products no matter their cost or quality. Read all about it here.

On the national level, Barack Obama is launching an ad to spread the word about his healthcare plan.  His plan’s not perfect-he avoids universal, single-payer coverage-but he pledges to oppose the individual mandate scam that’s being pushed by Romney, Schwarzenegger, Clinton, et al.  That’s a good first step.  (For the record, CNA/NNOC has made no endorsement.)

Elswhere, Ian Welsh looks at the recent article finding that 100,000 Americans die each year due to our deficient healthcare system.  That’s 100,000 victims of the health insurance industry.  He writes:

So choose whether you support single payer health care. But remember that in making that choice you are making a profound statement about what you consider important – free market ideology or saving lives and pain – and that single payor healthcare has been proven to actually be cheaper than the current system. Immoral and impractical – all in one.

Finally, the Rutland Herald in Vermont thinks single-payer “may be upon us sooner than we think” and  The Time Goes By blog wants to sign up for CheneyCare.

Uncategorized

Edwards Evening News RoundUp: the Fight for America’s Middle Class!

Thanks for tuning in once again, hopeful Americans

And welcome to what John Edwards has called “the Fight for America’s Middle Class”.  This is a fight to reclaim a Voice in our Democratic process — to speak up for those people, who need a Champion, like you and me.

1st a Question:  Who is the Middle Class?


America is sometimes called a “middle-class country,” but nobody – not economists, sociologists, or the U.S. Census Bureau – seems to have a clear definition of who the middle class actually is. The notion of where a dividing line between “middle class” and “working class” might be is an elusive one …

a non-partisan and non-profit organization, reports that the middle class has conventionally come to mean families with incomes between $25,000 and $100,000 each year.

…

As NOW reported in “Middle Class Squeeze” (Dec 13, 2002), the shape of income distribution in America is changing and many are finding it increasingly difficult to afford housing while keeping up with necessities such as food, clothing, transportation, and health care.

That was from

PBS – Now — 06-25-2004

Who is the Middle Class?

(not much has changed since Now’s 2004 study, has it?)

according to PBS’s Now, the Middle Class covered a wide range of incomes $25-100K, and is characterized by people

finding it increasingly difficult to afford housing while keeping up with necessities such as food, clothing, transportation, and health care.

That’s sounds like a pretty “Big Tent”!

John Edwards sees us struggling to make ends meet — and he is Fighting to give us Hope and Opportunity again!

It’s about time, someone did!

Please spend some time to join this very worthwhile Fight, too:

TheSlate

Edwards says he can come from behind to win home state of SC

By BRUCE SMITH – AP Writer

Jan. 12, 2008

…

Polls show the former U.S. senator from North Carolina trailing Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

“The same thing was true in 2004,” Edwards told reporters after meeting about 200 people at a diner in this upscale resort.

“When I was several weeks from the primary in 2004, I was in fourth place I believe and I wound up winning South Carolina by double digits,” he said.

South Carolina was Edwards’ only primary win four years ago. Edwards is on a four-day bus tour of this early voting state.

“People just have to hear what I’ve got to say,” Edwards said. “It’s hard because the national media is focused on – and have been for many months now – focused on two candidates.

“It’s very hard to get heard, but when I get heard, people respond.”

During his tour, Edwards has been traveling in a bus dubbed the Main Street Express with a sign on the side that reads, “Join the fight for America’s middle class.”

http://www.thestate.com/309/st…

—-

CBS – From The Road

Edwards Continues Courting South Carolina

Posted by Aaron Lewis

Jan 12, 2008

…

Edwards stood on a stool in the middle of the parking lot and gave a brief bullhorn speech to a crowd gathered around him.

“I’m here today to ask you to reach out to your friends, to reach out to your neighbors,” said Edwards. “I’m running against two candidates who have a hundred million dollars plus. My campaign is much more of a grassroots campaign, which means word of mouth, telephone calls, knocking on doors. It means doing the work that has to be done to get our people to the polls.”

…

“I know the people of South Carolina and I know the struggles they’re going through.”

…

But they stood patiently with the rest of the crowd and seemed rather pleased once they scored a handshake.

As Edwards marched through the gauntlet of palms waiting for him throughout the restaurant, one gentleman audibly voiced his approval of Edwards’s attire.

“He’s wearing a sports jacket with jeans,” he said. “You gotta respect that in a candidate!“

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2…

—-

CBS – From The Road

Edwards Says He Has “Plenty of Money”

Posted by Aaron Lewis

Jan 11, 2008

“We have plenty of money to run a serious campaign,” said Edwards. “And I think more important than that, I don’t think voters are going to be controlled by money. We’re gonna have an election, not an auction. And they’re gonna actually focus on what it is we stand for, what we’re fighting for, and I feel very optimistic about what’ll happen.”

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2…

—-

CNN reports some more campaign news from the Trail:

Dan Lothian – CNN Boston Bureau

Jan 12, 2008

SUMMERVILLE, South Carolina (CNN) …

Edwards says no matter what happens here on January 26, he’s in the race for the long haul.

“We have plenty of money to run a serious campaign, and I think more important than that, I don’t think voters are going to be controlled by money.”

Edwards said the election was about “standing up and fighting for the middle class,” to help lift people out of poverty and push for universal health care.

“The United States of America is better than this, and our parents and our grandparents struggled and sacrificed so that they can make this country what it is capable of doing,” Edwards said. “Now the question is: Will we rise up and show the same kind of grip and fight and strength and determination that they did? The answer is I believe we will.”

“It’s going to happen as we spread through these primaries, including right here in South Carolina,” he added. “I think you are going to stand up and say ‘yes.'”

Edwards’ message resonated with Darrell Clinton, who describes himself as a staunch Republican who’s now putting party politics aside to support Edwards.

“He’s a good mainstream politician looking out for the little guys,” Clinton said. “So often the guys at the top are taken care of, the guys at the bottom are taken care of, but there’s a lot of people in the middle … hurting.”

Edwards was happy to get Clinton’s support.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITI…

—-

I hope that last line, is a “good omen” of things to come. And Edwards’ natural appeal to cross-over Republicans in no small matter, if Democrats want to insure a landslide victory in 2008!  

Vote Smart, Dems.

The Edwards campaign is going into serious upsizing mode in Nevada too, where Union Support is sure to be a factor:

Political Leaders, Campaign Officials, Celebrities in Nevada for Geared Up Edwards Campaign on Final Weekend Before Caucus

Jan 11, 2008

…

The campaign will also be holding a statewide canvass with supporters from Nevada and across the region, including many union members who have been working with the campaign for months as part Edwards’ large bloc of labor support. Canvassers will spend Saturday and Sunday going door-to-door delivering targeted messages to Nevada caucus goers on the issues that concern them the most.

Former New Mexico Attorney General Patricia Madrid will be in Las Vegas to kick off the canvass on Saturday and then go door to door to talk about John Edwards’ plan to fight for working and middle class families. On Sunday night she will attend a house party with Edwards supporters and precinct captains.

Actress Madeline Stowe of “The Last of the Mohicans” and “Twelve Monkeys” will be in Las Vegas on Sunday to meet with voters and go door to do to discuss Edwards’ plans to build One America when everyone can work hard and build a better life. On Sunday night she will attend a house party with Edwards’ supporters and precinct captains. She will remain in Las Vegas for several days next week.

Edwards has strong grassroots support in Nevada due to his leadership on the issues, particularly health care, Iraq, working families and energy.

His organization was recently bolstered by staff from Iowa who came to Nevada following their work on Edwards’ strong second place showing over Hillary Clinton.

He has deep support from labor. The campaign has been working closely with the Carpenters, Steelworkers, Transport Workers and Communication Workers for months. Political leaders who support Edwards have been hard at work making phone calls and knocking on doors to spread his message of building One America.

Polls consistently show Edwards is the most electable Democratic against any of the top Republicans and is the only Democrat in the race to ever win in a “red” state .

http://www.johnedwards.com/new…

Some more on those Union workers — fighting for our Middle Class Issues:

NYTimes

Unions Pouring Resources Into Nevada Caucus Fight

Steven Greenhouse

Jan 13, 2008

But Mr. Obama’s union support in Nevada is formidable. Culinary Local 226 is the most politically powerful labor union in Nevada, and the unions backing Mrs. Clinton, as well as former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, are trying hard to counter its efforts. Union officials backing Mrs. Clinton note that many members of the culinary local are not American citizens and therefore cannot participate in the caucuses.

Chuck Rocha, the political director of the United Steelworkers, which backs Mr. Edwards, said his union had 42 paid workers in Nevada to mobilize its 3,500 members, including 900 Las Vegas cabdrivers.

“We’re playing a dual role,” Mr. Rocha said. “We do member-to-member beginning at 7 a.m., going to factory entrances, for instance.

When their eight-hour workday is over by 2 or 3, we have this army of 40 people who become volunteers for the Edwards campaign, who have a bigger impact.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01…

—-

Even though PBS describes the Middle Class as the range of incomes $25-100K, struggling to meet everyday bills, all too often those trapped in the lower rungs of the pyramid, face challenges everyday that can make Life seem all but Hopeless!

Well, John Edwards (sounding more like RFK everyday) sees their plight, and has just responded with:

Plan To End Poverty In South Carolina Within A Generation

Jan 12, 2008

… today Edwards introduced his plan for “Ending Poverty in South Carolina Within a Generation,” which calls for major new policies for work, housing, education, debt and savings, and family responsibility.

“Too many Americans are separated from the opportunities of our country,” Edwards said. …

“In America, every child should be able to go as far as her God-given talents and hard work will take her,” said Edwards. “As the first in my family to go to college, I know that our system of public education should be our sturdiest ladder of opportunity. To build the better America we all believe in, we must find ways to make college more affordable. We’ve got to make sure that every qualified student has the opportunity to go to college and fulfill the American Dream.”

…

Ending Poverty within a Generation: Edwards called for a national goal of ending poverty within a generation by cutting poverty by one third within a decade and ending poverty within 30 years.

Rewarding Work: To create more opportunities for work and reward those efforts, Edwards will raise the minimum wage to $9.50 an hour by 2012, helping the 33,000 South Carolinian workers who earn the minimum wage or less; cut taxes on low income workers; create 1 million Stepping Stone jobs; and strengthen workers’ rights.

Overhauling Housing Policy: Edwards will create 1 million new housing vouchers over five years to help low-income families move to better neighborhoods, invest in struggling neighborhoods, and promote state and local efforts to build affordable housing close to good jobs and schools.

Strengthening Schools and Making College Affordable: Edwards will create a universal system of Great Promise early childhood education centers; invest more in teacher pay and professional development; radically overall No Child Left Behind; create Second Chance schools to help high school dropouts; and pay the public college tuition of everyone willing to take a part time job through a new College for Everyone initiative.

Helping Families Save and Get Ahead: Edwards will subsidize bank accounts for the 28 million Americans without them; create new Work Bonds to help low-income workers build up savings accounts; and protect families against abusive financial products, including payday loans, predatory mortgages, and abusive credit card terms.

Supporting Responsible Families: Edwards will encourage and reward responsibility from fathers by helping them find work and requiring the help support their children and discourage teen pregnancy. He will also call on community leaders to recognize that there is only so much that the government can do, and we all share the responsibility of promoting strong families.

[Link goes into more details]

http://www.johnedwards.com/new…

—-

Lest other states, feel slighted, an Edwards Administration would have a similar plan for the Nation:

A National Goal: End Poverty Within 30 Years

Now to continue with another detailed look at John Edwards’ Plan to fix what’s wrong in America.

The Edwards team has given a lot of thought to these plans to help lift up the Middle Class. So we here in the Middle Class, who have daily challenges to ‘make ends meet’, should take the time to seriously consider this Repair Manual as well!

THE PLAN TO BUILD ONE AMERICA: BOLD SOLUTIONS FOR REAL CHANGE



[ click the image for your own copy. ]

Tonight’s Topic:

I. Standing Up for Working and Middle-Class Families

True Universal Health Care

“Mr. Edwards transformed the whole health care debate with a plan that offers a politically and fiscally plausible path to universal health insurance.”

– Paul Krugman, New York Times columnist


“Easily the most impressive health care reform proposal adopted by a national Democrat in 15 years.”

– Ezra Klein, The American Prospect

JOHN EDWARDS’ PLAN FOR TRUE UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE

[pgs 8-10]

Summary

Forty-seven million Americans without health care is a moral outrage. John Edwards was the first major presidential candidate to propose a detailed plan that takes on the big drug and insurance companies to guarantee quality, affordable care for every American.

The Edwards Health Care Plan

(1) Universal coverage through shared responsibility

(2) Affordable and higher quality health care

(3) New strategies for prescription drugs, long-term care, cancer, HIV/AIDS and nursing shortages

(1) Universal coverage through shared responsibility

— I. Outline of the Edwards Plan

A) Require by law that every American have comprehensive health coverage, including mental health coverage.

B) Require businesses to either cover their employees or help pay their premiums.

C) Make insurance affordable by creating new tax credits, expanding Medicaid and SCHIP, reforming insurance laws and taking innovative steps to contain health care costs.

D) Create new Health Care Markets to give families and businesses purchasing power and a choice of quality plans, including one public plan.

— II. Impact of the Edwards Plan

A) Families without insurance will get coverage at an affordable price.

B) Families with insurance will pay less and get more security and choices.

C) Employers will find it cheaper and easier to insure their workers.

D) The health care system could evolve into a singlepayer approach if Americans choose to enroll in the public plan instead of private insurance.

— III. Honesty about the Cost

A) We need to be honest about paying for universal health care. The Edwards plan costs $90-$120 billion a year. He will pay for it by repealing President Bush’s tax cuts for Americans who make over $200,000 a year and reforming health care to get better care at lower cost.

(2) Affordable and higher quality health care

Edwards’ cost-saving measures will save an average insured family $2,000 to $2,500 a year and eliminate at least $130 billion a year in wasteful spending.

—  I. Get Tough on Big Insurance and Drug Companies

A) Outlaw discrimination against people with preexisting conditions and require insurers to spend at least 85 percent of their premiums on patient care.

B) Make private insurers compete with a public plan available through the Health Care Markets.

C) Allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices, regulate misleading drug ads and permit safe reimportation of prescription drugs from Canada.

—  II. A New Era in Preventive and Chronic Care

A) Edwards will require coverage of preventive care at little or no cost and ensure that providers monitor chronically ill patients’ health to reduce complications and hospitalizations.

—  III. Implement Information Technology

A) Edwards will require the use of electronic medical records to reduce duplicative tests and medical errors while protecting patients’ privacy.

—  IV. Evidence-Based Medicine

A) Edwards will create an objective source of reliable medical information to help doctors give the best care and a “Consumer Reports” for health care for patients.

(3) New strategies for prescription drugs, long-term care, cancer, HIV/AIDS and nursing shortages

—  I. Choice and Dignity in Long-Term Care

A) Edwards will reform the long-term care system to create choices for older Americans and people with disabilities, provide home and community care and promote dignity for families and workers.

—  II. A National Strategy for Cancer Survivorship

A) Ensure that Americans with cancer are diagnosed earlier and receive coordinated care, and strengthen family support networks.

B) Double funding for research priorities, reduce risk factors and close racial and ethnic disparities.

—  III. End the HIV/AIDS Epidemic

A) Guarantee care for HIV-positive individuals through Medicaid before the disease advances.

B) Prevent HIV/AIDS with science-based steps and fight it in the African-American and Latino, as well as LGBT, communities.

—  IV. Address the Nursing Shortage

A) Graduate 50,000 new nurses by investing in nursing schools and scholarships.

B) Bring back and retain 50,000 existing nurses with new safety standards, safe staffing ratios and a banon mandatory overtime.

True Universal Health Care

“We have to stop using words like ‘access to health care’ when we know those words mean something less than universal care. Who are you willing to leave behind without care? Which family? Which child? We need a truly universal solution, and we need it now.

“I don’t believe you can sit down at a table with lobbyists for drug companies and insurance companies and negotiate your way to universal care. They are dead-set against this. It’s going to take a president who can take them on and beat them. That’s what I’ve been doing my whole life.”

– John Edwards, Candidate for the Democratic Nomination

Sounds like a plan with its main goal of improving the Quality of Life, for the rest of us.

Join this “Fight for America’s Middle Class” — it CAN Happen!

Well Thanks for stopping by. I hope you found something of interest to read.

As long as John Edwards is willing to listen to our issues, us ‘Working Folks’, shouldn’t we be willing to to Work with him, to help get OUR Message out?

This will ultimately be an Election, which ultimately the People will Decide …

Wouldn’t it be nice, if they had enough information, to actually make an informed Decision?

That truly would be a victory for Free Speech.

Health Care

We All Deserve CheneyCare–Not CIGNACare

From Nataline Sarkisyan to Angela Dispenza to ten-year-old Preston, we all deserve the kind of care that Dick Cheney has.

Pre-existing condition?  No problem.  Guaranteed healthcare?  Of course.  Heartless insurance bureaucrats meddling in medical decisions?  No way.  A single standard of quality care?  Nothing less will do.  

But why just Cheney?  Why not everyone?

Want to sign up for it?

…cross-posted at the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association’s Breakroom Blog, as we organize for GUARANTEED healthcare on the single-payer model.

 

Activist nurses around the country are going to take the case for CheneyCare directly to the Presidential candidates this year-but we need your help.  Go sign up.  We’ll send nurses in scrubs to carry the petition on your behalf to every member of Congress and Presidential candidate from both parties.  Patients need to keep pressure on politicians to really fix the healthcare system and ensure guaranteed healthcare for all Americans.

Nurses are running ads about CheneyCare today in major newspapers across the country.  As the Presidential race swings into high gear, it’s time for the pateints’ revolt to match it, and display the kind of intensity and organization that will force the politicians to listen to us-and not the insurance donors.  It’s time for the patients’ revolt, and Dick Cheney, and the care he receives but we don’t, is the perfect symbol to make it happen.  Take a look at the full ad, today in the New York Times, Wall St. Journal, and USA Today.

In case you missed it, The Wall St. Journal noted:

Vice President Dick Cheney would “probably be dead by now” if not for his federally funded health care, according to an eye-catching ad calling for universal health care that will run…in newspapers. The ad is union-funded by the California Nurses Association and its national arm, the National Nurses Organizing Committee, which represents 75,000 nurses.

You know you’ve succeeded when this happens:

The vice president’s office said the ad isn’t worth more than a no comment. “Something this outrageous does not warrant a response,” said Megan Mitchell, a spokeswoman for Cheney.

We are building a grand coalition.  

And the insurance industry?  Well, who really likes them except for the politicians whose pockets they line?

Uncategorized

They’re the Problem, they’re NOT the Solution!

Nope, you can’t buy an Election, why …

Cuz … Money Don’t Vote



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…

—-



Yes, for a few more years at least,

The People still do …  (vote that is)

John Edwards at LiveStrong on Corporate Lobbyists

August 2007 (moderator Chris Matthews)



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…

—-

John Edwards:

If you could do it, by compromise and negotiation —

Then WHY don’t we have Universal Health Care today?

John Edwards – Just Say No to Lobbyists



October 2007



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…

—-

John Edwards:

The reason we don’t have Universal Health Care today is because of Drug Companies, Insurance Companies and their Lobbyists, in Washington. They stand between you and the Health Care that you need.

We have to take this system on, we have to change it. We have to be willing to be honest about it.

…

You have to say NO to these People!

You have to say as President I represent the American People!

That’s the only way we’ll get the Change that we need in this Country.

John Edwards on Taking on Entrenched Special Interests

1-5-2008 NH Debate



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…

—-

John Edwards:

I want to say a quick word about this. You know, it is true that these entrenched interests — whether you’re talking about oil companies, drug companies, gas companies, whoever — these entrenched interests are literally stealing our children’s future. They have a stranglehold on this democracy and they are having an incredibly destructive force on the middle class, on families being able to do what my family has done and so many who are sitting here have been able to do.

And the problem is you can’t be with those people, take their money and then challenge them. It doesn’t work. You have to be willing to actually stand up and say no — no to lobbyist money, no to PAC money, no corporate lobbyists working for me in the White House. If you intend to take them on, and if it is personal for you — and this is extraordinarily personal for me — if it’s personal for you, then you can be successful bringing about the change.

Teddy Roosevelt — just one quick example — Teddy Roosevelt — Teddy Roosevelt, a great American president — he didn’t make deals with the monopolies and the trusts. Teddy Roosevelt took them on, busted the monopolies, busted the trusts. That’s what it’s going to take.

We have a battle in front of us. We do. I don’t think we have a problem with politicians in Washington spending enough time with lobbyists and going to cocktail parties. They do it all the time. They do it every single day, and I’ll tell you who’s paying the price for those cocktail parties: Natalie Sarkisian, every single American who doesn’t have health care coverage, everybody who’s going to the gas pump and paying so much money for their gas. When are we going to have a president who actually takes these people on? That’s what I’m going to do.

John Edwards: “Enough is enough”

1-5-2008 NH Debate



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…

—-

John Edwards:


What you see happening in America today, if you’re president of the United States and you’re looking at this from altitude is you see a very few Americans getting wealthier and wealthier, you see the biggest corporations in America’s profits through the roof — ExxonMobil just made $40 billion, record profits — all of that happening at the same time that we have 47 million people with no health care, 37 million who will wake up in this country tomorrow worried about feeding and clothing their children. Tonight, 200,000 men and women who wore the uniform of the United States of America and served this country honorably will go to sleep under bridges and on grates.

It’s time for us to say and it’s time for the president to say enough is enough. This is a battle for the future of our children. This is a battle for the middle class.

Let’s take jobs, which we haven’t talked about. We’ve touched on a lot of other things, but we haven’t talked about jobs. We’ve had a trade and tax policy that is bleeding American jobs, and all it has done is pad the profits of the biggest multinational corporations in America. You talk about professors here at this college.

…

I saw a projection just a week or so ago suggesting that America could lose as many as 20 (million) to 30 million more jobs over the next decade. Think about that for a minute, 30 million. And who’s the most at-risk group? College graduates. This is not just people who are working in mills and working in factories — who have been devastated by this, completely devastated — these are middle-class families, these are college graduates and their jobs at risk.

“We need a different Tax Policy, a different Trade Policy,

where the first question, and this is what I WILL ask

when I’m President of the United States:

‘Is this Trade Proposal, Is this Tax Proposal,

IS it good for working Middle Class Americans?’

That’s the Question!”

John Edwards: This Week with George Stephanopoulos

1-5-2008



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…

—-

John Edwards: The real question is What is Day One in the White House going to look like? “Day One, in my White House there will be NO Corporate Lobbyists, Nobody who Lobbied for Foreign Governments.”

…

“Yes. There will be NO Lobbyists who have worked for Trial Lawyers, NO Lobbyists who have worked for Big Corporations in my White House — Period!”

…

“I don’t think the Lobbyists are doing America any good! I think what they’re doing is, they’re standing up against working Middle Class families. And the Middle Class is struggling, and at risk as a result.”

…

This is the reason George, that the Voters here in NH, and all the future States, need an ‘unfiltered Debate’ between the two of us, about who can best bring about change.

George Stephanopoulos: You want a 2-person race?

John Edwards: I want a debate with — Listen I like Senator Obama very much. We do have a basic general view that is very similar. But I have a very view than he does, about how we bring about Change. I think we have an ‘epic fight’ on our hands, against these entrenched monied interests. And I think we’ll never be successful —

George Stephanopoulos: He led the fight for Lobbying Reform in the Senate, he says.

John Edwards: But he talks about this in a that suggests, you sit at a table and negotiate, with Drug Company Lobbyists, Insurance Company Lobbyists, and Oil Company Lobbyists, and you can somehow negotiate — they’ll negotiate their power away. That’s a fantasy, in my judgment! I don’t think it will ever happen!  I’ve been these people my entire life. First for 20 years in court rooms. And then I did it in public life.

…

What I am saying is these people have a disproportionate influence on the way the Government works, and they are stopping Progress. And let me be specific, we’re talking about this too generically:

Drug Companies and Insurance Companies have killed Health Care Reform in America.

Oil Companies have kept us from protecting the Environment, by attacking Global Warming.

The biggest multi-national corporations have set up, a set of Trade Systems and a set of Tax Laws that benefit them and profit them, but the Middle Class and working people are struggling as the result.

That is Wrong! I want to be the President that fights for the Middle Class, fights for working people, the kind of people I grew up with, George. I said this last night. This not abstract, or academic for me — it is PERSONAL! I see these people, going to these cocktail parties, having their receptions. You’ve been there George, you know how it works!

…

I mentioned this last night, this young woman who lost her life Nataline Sarkisyan, just a few week ago. Because her insurance company, one of the largest in America would not pay for a liver transplant operation — even though she HAD insurance. They would NOT pay for it! And People say to me, as their President, they want me to sit at a table and negotiate with these people?

I mean, they’re the PROBLEM, they’re NOT the SOLUTION!

And my job is to stand up for the American People against them!

…

This Cause, of fighting for people like Nataline Sarkisyan, fighting for people like my own family, and for the Middle Class, and giving them a decent life. And making sure their kids have a better life — which is what this is ultimately about — this is ‘the Cause of my Life’!

And I have NO Intention of stopping!

I am in this, through the Convention — and to the White House.



George Stephanopoulos: through the Convention?

John Edwards: Absolutely!

… I am in this through the Convention — and to the White House.

SO … Who is Standing up for you and your family, and your Future?

Who is looking for just another way, that we can “all just get along” …

I’m sorry, “Playing Nice” just does NOT work, anymore!

That Ship has sailed!

Look what happens when you work hard and “play by the rules” — hard-working Americans “get played for fools”!

Distribution of Wealth Trends in the US



http://www.bluehampshire.com/s…

—-

http://afferentinput.blogspot….

—-

[Each Quintile represents 20% of the Population, vs the break-even Zero-line.]

Well, advocates of Free Trade like to say: “there are Winners and there are Losers”

It’s just there are a heck of lot more of us

on the Downward sloping Trend AWAY from Progress and a Better Life —

Than there are those who actually moving TOWARDS IT!

(that is, about 95% have “been played”, if you look at the Game going on!)

John Edwards IS Right:  “Enough is enough!”

This Game Must End!

Can American really continue to “play nice” with those Entrenched Interests, and their paid Lobbyists, that are part of the PROBLEM?

Do you trust them to “play fair” so that we can all get along, and arrive at a SOLUTION?

IF you think that, well, DO I have a Bridge in Minnesota, I want to sell you!