Back from Bethany Beach, Delaware, and a visit with family (see pix soon on Facebook and Flickr.com and some now at QuickTakes.org), I am delving back into the healthcare struggle. After talking with my congressmember last month (pix on Flickr.com) and taking part in the Move-On vigil AND making lots of phone calls, I am still determined that something good is possible. It will take a lot of work and MORE phone calls and discussion with others to do likewise. I went to NY congressmember Anthony Weiner's website and left this message:

Dear Congressmember Weiner

Thanks for your vocal ardent support for a good healthcare plan, as defined for FireDogLake [see below] and on Rachel Maddow. PLEASE work for a consurmer-oriented one AND convince my congressmember Joe Crowley who says he's with me to come along with YOU in getting something that will really HELP middle class and working people. Single payer is BEST. A "robust public option" -- comprehensive, affordable, independent of insurance companies is the compromise. A WEAK public option that benefits the insurance companies is an ABSOLUTE NO-GO. Indeed, anything that benefits those blood suckers is a no-go.

Healthcare is a right, not a privilege and should NOT be a profit-maker Simple as that. We are talking healing and people's lives. Please keep money out of it.

I'm really impressed with what you are saying. Now, make it so!

Thanks.

Kate Anne

Please continue to make phone calls to your congressmember and senators (switchboard: 202-224-3121) in support of the healthcare needs of We the People. Ruth Klein, the Button Buddha, can supply you with a good political button on the issue. Buy one from her and wear it: ButtonBuddha (@) gmail.com.

Peace hugs,
Kate Anne

Healthcare and Hijackers

I just posted the attached to a forum at LHJ.com -- yes, I am a subscriber of Ladies Home Journal, deal with it :-)

Some people are all concerned about themselves and their own good health plans and to hell with the 47 million who have no healthcare -- they probably call themselves Christians, too, forgetting about the Golden Rule. OMG. In all the other industrialized countries, they have public healthcare -- and in some of these countries there are add on insurance policies, if people want them. But basically, I am not concerned about the healthcare industry anymore than I would be concerned about the blacksmiths put out of business when the automobiles began being manufactured. When something better comes along it is okay.

Furthermore, the healthcare industry doesn't really care about providing healthcare, profit is their focus. They eliminate people who will keep them from making their big bucks. They make their money from depriving people of health service. I now have what would be called a pre-existing condition. If I get laid off and/or have to change jobs for whatever reason, I will be screwed. Single payer or at least a good public option would be a Godsend to people with pre-existing conditions who need or want to change jobs.

As for the waiting lists under a government paid plan, emergency care is no problem in Canada and the other industrialized countries. And even with my current relatively good plan I have to wait months for certain doctors. Then I get my bill and see how much is denied reimbursement by my insurance, even as my premium (and deductible) go up and up.

You better darn well believe I have been calling my congressmember and senators and demanding that they see we get a program that saves lives. Because it is not about me, but about ALL of us. We need good healthcare which should not be connected to a profit motive. We're talking healing for you, me, everyone -- not an industrial bottom line.

Meanwhile I see that that town hall meetings are being hijacked by vocal people shouting down people who don't agree with them. Who is behind this hijacking of town hall meetings? The people are being spurred on by such sites as RecessRalley.com which is run by your average middle class millionaires and lobbyists. Rachel Maddow bravely pointed this out last night (Aug. 5, 2009). Please take ten minutes to view this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xlqxSRhARU

I've posted Rachel's clip on my Facebook page and have tweeted it and blogged it. All the media should be exposing how good people are being duped by those who don't want Congress to come up with a good plan, one that is affordable and comprehensive. No plan is perfect but it has to be better than our current broken system.

We must get out there and talk to people, all different people -- and for heaven's (and your neighbor's) sake, join me in calling you congressmember and Senators. Thanks!!

Peace hugs,
Kate Anne

Hurrah for Air America Radio

[A bunch of us are upset with Air America Radio because they have cancelled Sam Seder and Marc Maron's weekday videocast of Break Room Live -- it exists on YouTube and elsewhere and you can follow where Sam and Marc land by checking out SamSederShow.com -- but even as I am miffed I am going to look at the silver lining of the cloud. Think about it, and please join all of us Sederistas and Maronites in changing the world into a better place. Thanks! What follows showed up at Sam's site.]

Hey, I am going to accentuate the positive and say I am glad that Air America exists even if I don't like this latest turn BUT perhaps without them I might never have found people like Sam Seder and Marc Maron and Thom Hartmann (with Senator Bernie Sanders) and Lizz Winstead and Rachel Maddow and Al Franken (more of a liberal now than what he was before, I think) without Air America. Okay, they/Air America are not perfect, but I am glad they exist, even as I continue to support Thom Hartmann apart from them and Sam Seder and Marc Maron wherever they land and Lizz and Rachel ALWAYS, and Kent Jones and the great Laura Flanders and of course Janeane.... So yeah, let's get upset, but let's move forward and insist our guys (and gals, if you don't think guys is gender neutral) end up economically and psychologically WELL and HAPPY. Let's push them, their video, their books, their body of work, wherever we go.

And another thing, I likely would have never met YOU Guys without THEM: MaggiesBoy, Fernando, Nefferkitti, Nightbird,ToniD, Kat-in-Manhattan...., all of YOU -- and you guys are GREAT!! So, yes, it isn't fair but it is what it is, and it sure is better than Right Wing America.

So kisses and Peace Hugs from NYC and know that it works out OKAY: together we will help heal the world and make it transform. Got to get Thom's newest book [Threshold] because it talks about our being at the crossroads. We are. It is tough times. But we are together going to do what we can. Pray God that it is enough.

Love you -- Peace hugs,
Kate Anne

Single Payer Best / Public Option is the COMPROMISE

[Click on letter to enlarge]

The Democratic Party is rumored to be defecting on the compromise for Single Payer Healthcare, which is an affordable, comprehensive public option. I've made my phone calls but I'm sending letters to Senators Schumer and Gillibrand as well as to US Representative Joe Crowley. I used the Nicole Hollander card from Physicians for a National Health Program to create the stationery. They are all pretty much the same, but Senator Kirsten Gillibrand's has an additional edge added to it because she has betrayed me before.

Please join me in doing something similar and get it in the mail now to your LOCAL congressional offices. Washington DC mail is slooooooooow. Thanks!

Peace hugs,
Kate Anne

PS -- New Yorker Friends, our Senators' local offices:

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand 
780 Third Avenue - Suite 2601
New York, NY 10017

Sen. Chuck Schumer
757 Third Avenue - Room 17-02
New York, NY 10017

Deeds Not Words, President Obama!

PLEASE WATCH and CONSIDER. In this GRITtv video, Laura Flanders reminds us that President Obama needs to follow through on the great words he used this past week, before more needlessly die at Guantanamo. Deeds not Words, President Obama.



Perhaps you will be moved to contact President Obama by form: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/ or by phone, 202-456-1111.

Peace hugs,
Kate Anne

Forgiveness and The Better World Project

With so much to do to make the world a better place and a New York Fellowship of Reconciliation meeting tonight where we plan to discuss the topic of Forgiveness, I googled and was led to find the perfect auxiliary material for tonight: The Better World Project's forgiveness quotations. What a positive healing site and example of forgiveness and compassion. The website is dedicated to the memory of a beautiful young activist Emily Rachel Silverstein (1989-2009) who was murdered on April 9, 2009. She was studying Arabic and planning to work on peace issues. Read her bio -- and gain sustenance from her life and the people who are making something positive out of her leaving at such a young age:

In her all too brief life, Emily did so many amazing things to try to make her wish for a more peaceful, just and sustainable world come true. Please don't let our Emily be forgotten. Help spread a message of hope for a better world.

They have quotations on Peace there, too, and lots of other good subjects. Spread the word. Share the vision. This is one site that I will be following.

Peace hugs,
Kate Anne

Catching up -- Peace, Torture, Susan, David, AIDS Walk

I've been quiet here but spring has been been beautiful and busy and I've been more vocal on Facebook and Twitter -- such is the evolving social media stream. Peace work involves calls to the White House comment line: 202-456-1111. And in the related end torture/shut down Guantanamo work, I wish I could join Matt Daloisio in Washington for the 100 Days Campaign but I can't get arrested and I have much stuff here that I must accomplish for personal peace, which aids world peace in its own way. There's that but yes, I have been enjoying cheering on Susan Boyle and checking out more Britain's Got Talent stuff on YouTube. In the forefront of much of my spring, however, is my participation in AIDS Walk NY in memory of my big brother -- David J. Pfister. I thank my sponsors and urge you to join them in memory of David and/or another to benefit this good cause.

AIDS Walk New York, the world’s largest AIDS fundraising event, benefits GMHC and over 30 other tri-state area AIDS service organizations. GMHC is the nation’s oldest and most comprehensive AIDS service organization, serving approximately 15,000 people living with HIV and AIDS and their families each year, and countless more through its prevention and advocacy work locally and nationally.

To donate, click here or the scrolling gadget in my sidebar.

Thank you so much, and

Peace hugs,
Kate Anne

Kate Anne and David, circa 1989