For months, the Health Insurance Industry and some insider D.C. Democrats have been pressuring healthcare leaders and organizations to back down on demands that a public option be included in the final bill.
What they didn’t count on is a united progressive block standing strong. House Healthcare Leaders like Maxine Waters, Keith Ellison, Lynn Woolsey, Jerrold Nadler, Bob Filner, Chellie Pingree and John Conyers have not backed down. Organizational leaders like Governor Dean and AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka continue to draw a line in the sand.
But the pressure to cave in and support just any healthcare reform is hard to overcome. These healthcare leaders and organizations need to know we have their backs. Today, DFA joins with FireDogLake Action in calling on the progressive block to continue to stand their ground for real reform.
We stand united with them now and we will remember their leadership when they work for reelection in 2010.
Health Insurance Reform
These healthcare leaders, organizations and members of Congress have taken an incredibly brave stance in defiance of insurance industry lobbyists who want to kill a public option. In the coming days and weeks, we must work together to bring more organizations and leaders publicly on board.
It’s up to us to make sure insider Democrats get the message: We stand united and we won’t back down.
Thank you for everything you do,
-Charles
Charles Chamberlain, Political Director
Democracy for America
Ed, I don't know quite where your politics lay (though both of us are seemingly convinced that Obama has no regard for the economy or the American dollar) but I don't believe personally that the current health reform bill is going to help anyone in the long run as anything short of a national single payer plan is not going to rein in health care costs.
I am as free market as they come and am a strict Libertarian except for issues in which the policy affects everyone. If the policy has an effect on the lives of everyone in this country, then it has to be a government run (state or federal) program. In the case of anything else, the government should mind its own business and lower taxes as its primary objective (as well as staying out of any wars that do not meet the definition of self defense).
We are on the precipice of economic collapse and the idiots in Washington are pushing us off the cliff!
Yes…we need health reform…but not Obama style! Too bad McCain's ideas were not used. Increased utilization of HSAs, tax credits and enhanced preventative benefits for all. Too simple, I guess.