Thanks Marisa

Excellent!

Eternal gratitude from Sweden for doing such a great job with this.

Hi Marisa,

I just posted on Campaign Silo about my conversation with Nadler’s press secretary. Nadler is a definite punt.

Eve

Wexler would not vote for any plan that did not include a public option that was “competitive” and “operating under the same rules as private” insurance.

isn’t that insurance company language? it sounds like the “level playing field” type rhetoric that’s been used to mask moves to cripple the public option by requiring it to charge no less than what private plans charge, removing any ability to negotiate prices, etc.

This is great and urgent stuff, and so was Jane’s excellent work on the supplemental, but allow me to go off topic to pose the question: is there anything we should be doing right now to protest the coup in Honduras? I mean besides just calling up the White House and asking them to condemn? Thanks.

mad props to Jane P and others for whipping DeLauro – mwaaah !

Spoke to an aide in Congresswoman Clarke’s office who couldn’t answer my questions to my satisfaction, so I emailed her Senior Legislative Counsel. I hold Clarke, a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, to a higher standard than the HCAN criteria. FWIW, here’s the body of my email; I’ll let you know what I hear.

I’m a constituent of Congresswoman Clarke’s from Park Slope. On May 13, I stopped by your offices to thank the congresswoman for her co-sponsorship of HR 676 and to urge her to hold firm on her support for single-payer health financing reform. Since single payer has been all but shut out of current legislative deliberations, I also called for holding firm against diluted “public option” plans, such as that put forward by Senator Schumer, that would hobble a public plan so as to artificially maintain the competitiveness of for-profit health insurers.

My question is whether Congresswoman Clarke will pledge to vote against any health care reform bill that does not adhere to the CPC principles for a “robust” public option, ie (at minimum), one that is nationally available, available from day one, available to all employers and individuals without limitation, and based on existing successful government infrastructures such as Medicare.

Please don’t say yes unless you are speaking on the authority of the Congresswoman. The public option is already a compromise, and I want to ensure that the Congresswoman is on board as part of a bloc that will vote against any dilution of the CPC’s criteria for the strongest possible version of this already flawed approach.

I leave messages sometimes to any Congressperson via the toll free switchboard lines at night you can easily google.

It is sad that when you call during the day and are discovered to be outside the constituency you feel like a “second class” citizen and your message is not as “valuable” to them because they do not technically represent you. And many emails for reps won’t allow you to send a note if you are out of zipcode range.

They represent ALL of us. All the time, with their votes and their powerful committee memberships voting for bills that affect everyone in every state. But the message is so QUID PRO QUO even in that. Yes, local issues, state issues, they should listen to their direct constituents, but this stuff, this vote, there is something terribly wrong in being limited to press simply one’s state reps. But it is the way it is. And we can still call and there is still impact from calling. And we should use our industrial strength voice on our own reps at the very least. Let them know we are going to stay vocal and watchful.

4 health care industry lobbyists per representative. $90 million to Dems last election, $65 to Repubs allegedly from health care lobbyists which made the pure universal single payer plan NEVER EVEN SERIOUSLY ON THE TABLE though it is best for the average American sinking fast and who could use that justice, fairness, and security (we are the only industrial country without a universal plan, ranking 37th on the list of best health care … a disgrace for this country).

Thanks to you whipper-snappers, thank you thank you thank you, and I will join today, doing my calling, over and over as much as I can, and this list is so precious. Thanks for doing this leg work and giving us a base camp so that our lone message doesn’t feel like it disappears into the ether, no weight against the corporate-engined toxic to the common good status quo.

Will pass on this site and this list and try to recruit. Time to make these guys walk the walk. The progressive caucus in the Congress that talked the talk and then those who walked away from their anti-enabling of the war pledges. They have escaped unnoticed too long. Talked out of both sides of their mouths too long. Time to tell them we notice and we have long memories and are determined to stay awake and aware. Mike P on Ring of Fire, Air America, referred to the “gutless moderates” the other day. I had that naive hope when Obama came to power, though haunting doubts, that our biggest opponents were obtuse Republicans. Never dreamed the degree of selling out of our own party. Ralph Nader pointed it out long ago. Thought Ralph was being hyperbolic. So not so.

I do still believe in ants moving rubber tree plants and Frank Capra endings. We will prevail eventually if we keep on with the good fight of humanity. Thank you, all.

ps. Pete Seeger said, “Think globally, act locally.” I guess this is it. Doing our part in the big scenario, from our local space. We need to walk the walk ourselves as much as we are asking these reps to.

that single payer was taken off the table — so that the bill, the evidence, the studies, the peer-reviewed publications were not even supposed to be discussed — and instead democrats gave us a slogan with a few talking points (for which even now a year later there is no bill or even actual policy details with evidence & studies to back them up) has me so pissed off and discouraged that some days it’s hard not to despair.

selise, I so relate. and life demands rain down on citizenry as fresh hells of betrayal go on and on setting in motion our futures and the future of America’s children and proving how “shock and awe” is SOP for the American government to foreigners and their own citizens. and we do need to band together with heart and consistency and form our own good-guys lobby. those of us who are really “getting it” are often regarded as inconveniently negative to those who remain in the fog of status quo unearned trust toward a government that is amoral. glad you replied to me. one day, breath, phone call at a time. ll :)

one day, breath, phone call at a time.

(((ll))) you are very wise. thank you.

selise, at the risk of seeming over-the-top in my cheerleading mode (I spend more time in the despair and/or fog one) here is more of my popping off — my comment from ThatGuy’s recent diary (now I need to do a lot of walking the walk to back up my talking):

http://oxdown.firedoglake.com/diary/5981

ThatGuy, well, we seriously get to be this generation’s sons and daughters of liberty, a counter-culture, truth to power, evolved and enlightened base camp for each other here at FDL and other aware sites and communities and relationships, insisting on integrity.

Rather be aware than in denial. There is a spiritual breakthru sense of freedom and inner peace, hard won and wonderful, and those who are blocked, like Obama himself, are spiritually stunted, too afraid not to accommodate the patriarchal/authoritarian status quo. On some level he and they are aware of their cowardice. Obama can talk the talk, so there is potential. But can’t walk the walk. We gotta mourn the leader he turned out not to be.

So we have to challenge him and the collective ego-denial-narcissism in this society. And messengers aren’t treated well, no good deeds go unpunished, by those repressing the truth. But some will finally grow if we stay clear and assertive and committed. I’d rather be on this side than theirs. Out of the fog. Much better view. (They say in the dog-sled of life, if you are not a lead dog, the view is always the same. We got the spiritual good view! We are the lead dogs.)

And one more animal metaphor. There is that story about the 100 monkeys. Once 100 monkeys get the truth, the truth ripples quickly and entirely through the whole monkey nation. Takes a lot to get that 100 monkey proportional quota. The people who fought McCarthyism. The people who fought for women’s suffrage. The people who fought for racial equality. The people who fought the wrong-headedness of the Vietnam War. The people who took away the presidency from McCain and (shudder) Palin. The courageous founders of the US who made the blueprint for a just government. They got that 100 monkey quota to alter history for the better.

Our turn for this stage of the good human fight. :)

Thanks Marissa.

Ya know what’s amazing? A reform public option plan could pay doctors what they want (without the insurance mark-up price), charge precisely the private insurers median price and still give people a much better price than the current system.

How?

A ‘public option’ system will have more customers (forming a larger pool of reserves), particularly younger ones (who aren’t using services much), young ones choosing basic plans (which cost less naturally), paying out less (since doctors don’t really charge what insurers claim), taking in the same as private insurers (which is a lot more than is really needed) and being run by a not-for-profit entity (which leaves more money in the reserves).

It doesn’t require trickery (such as price under-cutting) for this to work exceedingly well.

At some point we’re going to need accountants (or somebody to score this) who can show that in hard numbers.

Not yet. Their constitution might technically allow for this if their Legislature orders it.

We need to know their Law.