Motley Moose – Archive

Since 2008 – Progress Through Politics

Healthcare: We Need to Get Involved

This is a call for whatever rational people are left on the internet…we need to get involved in the healthcare debate.

The blogsphere isn’t helping the cause, with OpenLeft and DailyKos throwing in the towel with comments like “It’s obvious Obama is the enemy” and “is six months a record for a presidency to become a lame duck?”, and MyDD become infested with the worst of the PUMA, like sharks smelling blood in the water.

Tom Harkin has hinted he will be open to a healthcare co-op instead of a public option…this may doom the public option. Tom Daschle says the public option might have to be dropped

If we want a public option, we need to get involved. We need to counter the spin against the public option. We need to explain the positives.

76% support a public option, so we’re halfway there…now let’s help bring it home. While the handwringers and “told you so’s” count down to failure, we need to help success.

Democrats are notoriously bad with this…they seem to think the campaign ends on Election Day. Republicans believe that’s where it begins. Here’s a comment I found on DailyKos that I found interesting;

If healthcare reform were a top priority for the GOP, you’d see an endless parade of right-wing callers, letter-writers and e-mailers pressuring Congress and the White House to do something.  Rush Limbaugh would be orchestrating the whole thing, much as he did in 1994 when he exhorted his troops to kill Hillary Clinton’s single-payer proposal.

This is when it would be helpful for the Dems to have an actual BASE, not a bunch of dissociated interest groups that drift in and out of the Party depending on how their personal agendas are being addressed.

Call your Senator and your Congressperson and tell them what you support…tell them that you want a public option in healthcare. We can still win this, but the way only we can is by not being defeatist and not playing the “I told you so” game.

We got our marching orders, let’s go.  


Categories: Uncategorized.

/ 81 Comments

81 comments

  1. sricki

    is also one of its greatest weaknesses. Namely, the diversity and wide span of opinions. Or maybe I should say it’s a weakness of the Left in general terms. There are so many disparate parts and factions that I feel like we tend to become disorganized. From Reagan Dems to far Left loonies, I feel like the Left often lacks cohesion. We’ve got Dixiecrats who may prove useless or outright detrimental to any healthcare legislation we try to pass, and we’ve got, as Chris called them, shrieking libs who may not fight for Obama’s healthcare plan because it isn’t progressive enough. I’m for single-payer (and barring that, liked Edwards’ and Hillary’s plans more than Obama’s — my main sticking point during the primaries), but I also think we’ve got to take what we can get, meaning that we’d better help the administration do what it can. Not everyone feels that way, and people who are dispassionate aren’t usually helpful.

    The Left is such a vast spectrum, almost to the point of seeming somewhat chaotic at times, and I think sometimes we don’t work together closely enough to get things done. Not to say that there isn’t a similar spectrum in the Republican party (unquestionably they have plenty of moderates and far out loons as well), but somehow it usually seems that they pull together better to accomplish their goals than we do — though perhaps not this past November.

    Obama, of course, has a lot of work to do on this, and I do think he needs to be more aggressive. Frankly, I think Bill Maher can be a real asshole, and I think he’s being too harsh on Obama. But at the same time, I agree with his larger point on this issue — that Obama needs to push healthcare through, even if he has to drag people kicking and screaming. Maher says he needs to be more like Bush, and in a way, maybe he’s right. Bush pushed through some of the most appalling garbage I’ve ever seen, regardless of whether much of anyone really wanted it. The people want a public option — let’s all do what we have to do to get it done, even if we have to twist a few metaphorical arms.

  2. John Allen

    I sent both of my senators an email earlier today urging them to support a strong public option in the plan if they couldn’t get single-payer. I’m going to do the same for my rep and for the rep just south of my district (MI-05). My rep, Kildee, was a lock so I gave support to Gary Peters in MI-09. Peters win was one really bright spot last November. He’s a strong progressive with an impressive military career in his background. He strongly supported a public option during his campaign. I’m going to send him an email to remind him of that.

    My own rep, Dale Kildee, has been in Congress forever, or so it seems. Well, 32 years isn’t exactly forever, but it’s a heck of a long time. Kildee can be counted on to push for a public option. In fact, I believe Kildee supports the single-payer system put forward by John Dingell.

    For those of you who aren’t up on Michigan politicians, John Dingell is the longest serving member of Congress. His father was also a representative from Michigan. The elder John Dingell introduced a bill for national health care when he was in Congress. His son introduces that same bill every year. If only the Dems in Congress had the fortitude to actually pass that bill.

  3. John Allen

    I got this in an email from grassrootsusa. I have always believed they are only in this for the money and this is how they sucker people out of their money. You have to ‘donate’ at least $20 to get them to send a ‘blast fax’ to congress. Anyway, here’s the first part of the message. The rest is as bad or worse.

    Dear John:

        You’ll be hearing a lot about the cost of the Obama-Kennedy-Pelosi fraudulent heath care plan in the coming days.

        But what should really concern you is not its cost… but rather its callousness.

        Forget, for just a moment, that the cost of Obama-Kennedy-Pelosi-Care will bankrupt this nation.

        Probably the most horrifying aspect of Obama-Kennedy-Pelosi-Care… the aspect that no one is talking about… is that it will promote death and sickness on a scale so huge that it would have warmed the heart of “Dr. Death” himself, Jack Kevorkian.

        The dirty little secret is that Barack Obama and Teddy Kennedy and Nancy Pelosi aren’t “reforming” American health care at all, unless you call promoting death and sickness, as a means of controlling cost, “reform.”

        Here’s what political pundit Dick Morris recently wrote on the subject:

    “Now that the cameras have been put away and the media is no longer watching, their secret emerges: They are going to cut medical costs by cutting medical care. Right now…. These decisions will not be medical but financial. They will not be based on a doctor’s opinion of what his or her patient needs, but a bureaucrat’s and an accountant s opinion of what the new health care system can afford.”

    “And you will not be able to bypass their rulings and pay for this care yourself. The rules laid down must be followed and private payments will not be permitted to override them. What we now call a private fee for service will metastasize into a bribe.”

    “But this is just the very beginning… rationing is coming, and coming soon.”

        Of course promoting death and sickness in the health care industry goes by other, nicer sounding, names… rationing of services… denial of choice… but no matter what we may call it, this so-called health-care “reform” will have two foundations: (1) increasing the killing of unborn children and (2) reducing the life-spans of the elderly, the infirmed and the handicapped… all in the name of driving down costs.

        To paraphrase Morris; if you need a CAT Scan or an MRI, forget it. If you need antibiotics, forget it.

        As for potentially life-saving or life-extending treatments, take a number and stand in line.

        Is this why we’re bankrupting the nation?

        We say no.

        But simply saying no is not enough. We must, right here and right now, tell our elected officials that we want them to say no as well. And we can’t back down because too much is riding on whether you take action right now.

    ——————————————————————————–

    Use the hyperlink below to send your urgent Blast Fax messages to Barack Obama and each and every Member of the Republican and Democrat leadership of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives (or alternately to Barack Obama and all 535 Members of Congress).

    Tell them to reject any temptation to compromise or fix the Obama-Kennedy-Pelosi-Care proposals that will be thrust upon them. Tell them that the only option is to reject the Obama-Kennedy-Pelosi plan outright. No compromises… no fixes… tell our elected leaders to just say no and when it comes to health care, to go back to the drawing board.

    Our elected leaders need to hear from you right away… before they start negotiating or cutting deals behind the scenes, before they do something that is both stupid and evil.

  5. Chris Blask

    not that it’s like anyone needs my vote, but my voice is not in support of anything I haven’t been convinced of.  I’m not the hardest person to convince – I’ve seen the benefits of socialized medicine firsthand and know we need to do something, whatever it is.

    I gotta say, so far I haven’t been wowed, and from what I see that’s not uncommon.  All these Dem politicians wouldn’t be waffle-coning all over the place if the party and president had been successful in developing a killer sales pitch.

    The arguments being put out against the plan are more coherent and understandable – whether correct or not, and whether delivered calmly on CNN or with paranoid hysteria in email.

    Without the public option it is hard for me to see what it is that’s getting done at all – still like someone to pitch me on how that fixes anything.  With the public option my anxiety has not been mitigated, GOP spokesfolks make good points that a public option is the same as single-payer: “you cannot compete with someone who makes laws and taxes”, therefore all private insurance companies will go out of business.  With no private option being viable rationing is entirely logical and exactly what is seen in existing socialized systems.

    I just get the feeling that whoever is supposed to be VP Marketing for this effort either sucks at it or, worse, really can’t put a good pitch together.  

  6. John Allen

    here’s a form letter you can send to your reps and senators. Feel free to copy and paste it into an email or an online contact form.

    =============================================================

    Senator,

    I am writing to you as a voter and a politically active citizen. By politically active, I mean I am the type of person who follows politics closely. Not only do I follow politics, I act when appropriate. I am the type of person who writes letters to the editor, posts to blogs on the Internet, volunteer and contribute money for campaigns, and keep my friends and family up-to-date on happenings in DC that concern them. This issue is important to me and, I assure you it, is important to every person I talk to in this country.

    Reform of the health care system is one of the most important issues facing this country. In poll after poll, the American people have made known their preference for a public insurance option. Unfortunately, the process in Washington D.C. seems to be hostage to special interests groups including the insurance industry and pharmaceutical companies. It would be a shame if the people’s representatives let this opportunity slip away as they have so many times since Harry Truman first proposed a national health care system. The time has come to stand up and be counted.

    There comes a time in every politician’s career when he or she must make a choice between the wishes of campaign contributors and the interests of their constituents. This is such a time. Please do the right thing and support a strong public option in the current reform process. This is the right thing for the citizens of this country. It is time we joined the ranks of every other advanced country and provide coverage to all of our citizens. Americans deserve no less.

    Sincerely,

  8. creamer

    Their message delivery has never been as single minded as our friends in red.  By allowing congress to design this, President Obama has allowed his message to be muted. I think this is to avoid the problems Clinton had in the 90’s, Senators like to think it was their idea. I do hope as we go forward Obama becomes more involved.

     I favor single payer, I would be relieved if we got a public option. And yes it will proably drive down profit for the insurance industry. And while I understand the concern of some for insurance related jobs, it would seem that money people and business are spending on insurance policys would be spent somwhere else.

  9. nrafter530

    Another example of why progressives and Democrats constantly lose.

    This is from a longtime Dkos poster;

       

    well ANY repig starts at around 45% (0+ / 0-)

    but once obama caves on  health care as he is about to, i would put him at only 50-50.

    and if the economy stays bad the increased attacks by fox news and the republican party will push his chances below that.

    he has failed to push a progressive agenda with a dem congress and he wont win re-election acting like a republican.

    his failure to stand up has lost him many moderates who see him as weak and many progressives who see him as turning his back on the issues the ycare most about.

    obama is in big trouble .

    unless he overcomes his image as being weak he will sink like a rock with the american people.

    “but I would not be convicted by a jury of my peers. still crazy after all these years”…..

    by JadeZ on Thu Jun 18, 2009 at 11:07:51 PM EDT

Comments are closed.