Healthcare On The Hustings

Stupak, a Dem trying to keep Connie Saltonstall from protecting Choice

Maybe Inside the Beltway journos-- what we call The Village-- ought to venture out of the bubble before they make sweeping generalizations like the headline in today's Hill about how Democratic candidates are distancing themselves from healthcare reform. That's just plain wrong. "Hardly any Democrat running for Congress seems to want to talk about healthcare," is the first sentence. Aaron, come on over to a Blue America session any Saturday at Crooks and Liars and hear what actual Democratic candidates have to say about healthcare reform. True, the DCCC-controlled anti-grassroots candidates have been instructed to not discuss "controversial" issues, but real Democrats are hammering healthcare reform, especially in primaries against the conservative Democrats Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Patrick Murphy are trying to weigh the Democratic Party down with.

One of Marcy Winograd's campaign slogans is "Healthcare, Not Warfare and her campaign website-- unlike the issueless pabulum the DCCC insists on for "their" candidates-- features a detailed healthcare reform plan. Unlike Jane Harman, her Blue Dog opponent, Marcy supports single-payer healthcare.

We need Medicare for All – or a single-payer system that pays doctors, nurses, and other health care providers from a single fund. The administrator of the fund is the federal government, which ensures every American has access to quality affordable health care. Under a Medicare for All plan, you can go to a public clinic or a private doctor.  It’s up to you.
Health Care for All is paid for by a tax on the employer, and, to a lesser extent, the employee.  No one goes bankrupt paying their medical bills.  Premiums are low and so are medical bills.
When elected Winograd will work to:

- Ensure that states and cities are not pre-empted by federal legislation prohibiting their implementation of a single-payer system

- Lead the Progressive Caucus in fighting for quality affordable health care for all

According to a study by Harvard Medical School, insurance companies spend up to 30% of their budget on administrative costs, which are then passed on to the consumer in the form of  higher medical bills.  In contrast, Medicare spends only 3% on administration. Under a single-payer system, the federal government or individual states could purchase pharmaceuticals in bulk, thus lowering the cost of medicine.  

We have a system that works-- Medicare. Let’s make it work for everyone!

That sounds an awful lot like the proposal Alan Grayson made on the floor of Congress this week, a proposal that is gathering dozens of co-sponsors (though, obviously, not Harman). And that is, in general, what all the Blue America candidates are campaigning on this year.

The Hill might be interested in knowing that, according to the National Journal's survey of which organizations' congressional endorsements for 2008 had the best track record, the list Blue America put together with People For the American Way-- of course, they ONLY count Inside-the-Beltway organizations for the actual survey-- was #1. Our track record was better than any insider or DC-based organization. But, of course, insider, DC-based media like The Hill would never conceive of the idea of going to a grassroots organization to find out what's really going on in America.


Barely a day goes by without progressive, grassroots Democrats like Bill Hedrick (CA), Regina Thomas (GA), Elaine Marshall (NC), Billy Kennedy (NC) and Jennifer Brunner (OH) talking about the need for serious healthcare reform. This week Connie Saltonstall launched a primary campaign based almost entirely on the fact that the incumbent, anti-Choice religious fanatic Bart Stupak, is willing to destroy healthcare reform for all Americans in order to impose his hysterical and patriarchal positions on the role of women in society on the whole country.

Yesterday Florida progressive Doug Tudor spoke-- along with the conservative Blue Dog Lori Edwards, before a Democratic Club in FL-12. In response to a question about healthcare, specifically the public option from a concerned Democrat, the Blue Dog/DCCC shill ducked the question (except to say she opposes single-payer; when queried for the Hill article, an Edwards spokesperson said she isn't "ready to talk" about it), while Dog Tudor, who takes all questions head on, had this to say:

"I support John Conyer's bill, H.R. 676, which is a single payer system. I've been on government healthcare all my life. My father was a Navy Master Chief; I did my service. I am now, along with being a retired military member and covered by the Veterans Administration, I'm also a military dependent because my wife is an active duty Air Force Master Sergeant. It works; it's cheaper. It will cost not only families less, but our government less. The only reason we can't get to it is because too many people are taking insurance lobbyists' money. Corporare lobbyists are stopping our country from moving forward."

Blake's Hill article never mentions progressive state Senator Craig Pridemore, the grassroots candidate running to replace retiring Brain Baird in southwest Washington state. Instead he quotes the multimillionaire conservative insider candidate, Denny Heck, who he's been told is the "front-runner." Blake grouses that Heck "would only lay out a series of policy goals and declined to delve into the details of the Senate bill. He echoed a line frequently used by the candidates-- that something must be done."

Had Blake bothered to contact Pridemore he would have found a state legislator who-- in the words on his own website-- "has consistently worked to protect health care programs for kids, seniors, and low income families.  In Congress, Craig will make progress, not more excuses." Faced with frightened, vacillating Democrats, heartless Republican obstructionists, and bribe-besotted members from both parties working to kill the bill, Pridemore would have told Blake what he told me:

An overwhelming number of people in this country wanted legitimate healthcare reform, including the choice of going to a public option. It wasn't just Republicans who thwarted that reform; it was Democrats too. We need strong, progressive Democrats who are going to fight for what the people want-- not just for insurance companies.

...It’s difficult to just walk away from what little progress this bill does make. Covering 31 million more Americans and pre-existing conditions are great things and should be done immediately. But the rest of this proposal, as with both the House and Senate versions, leaves far more to be desired than it does to satisfy. If this really is the best we can accomplish right now, health care reform will continue to be a high priority issue in the next Congress.

As for Obama... he must think it's still viable since he postponed his trip to Indonsesia, not a big deal in Peoria, but a major disappointment in the world's biggest Muslim country.

On Thursday, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs brushed aside suggestions that the president planned to postpone or cancel the long-planned trip to his childhood home in Indonesia, even as Hill Democrats groused that the excursion came at the precise time he demanded they finalize a deal.

On Thursday, both Gibbs and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the House was close to finalizing a strategy for pushing a previously passed Senate bill through the lower chamber, but that the deal might require a few extra days. By postponing his trip, Obama effectively gives the House some breathing room, preserving the hope that members will be able to depart the Capitol for their Easter break two weeks from today with a deal in their pockets.