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

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

Healthcare NOT Warfare

PDA -- Progressive Democrats of America -- gave me a good reason to remove my mourned John Edwards for President blog button:

Healthcare NOT Warfare -- Sign the petition! And I'm going to dig out my similar healthcare pin from Button Buddha Ruth Klein and start pushing this issue. This country can't afford both endless war and good affordable healthcare for all. Which is more humane and life-preserving? Well, dah! We know what the war machine wants, but we know what We the People want and NEED. SO......We have to push the Dems to get off their duffs and move on ending the occupation and the war on a noun (and any future illegal invasions) and choose LIFE. This petition will be presented to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, DNC Chair Howard Dean and our Congresscritters before the Denver convention.

Healthcare NOT Warfare, Sign the Petition

As Martin Luther King Jr. observed forty years ago, "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death." While the insurance and pharmaceutical industries post huge profits, the U.S. health care crisis grows steadily worse.

Today, nearly one in six Americans has no health insurance. Tens of millions of others are woefully under-insured. Meanwhile the war in Iraq drains our resources and overburdens our budget. Our government’s duty is to protect us—security begins with our health and well-being at home. In 2008, we have an historic opportunity to turn from warfare to health care for all.

We call on the Democratic Party at all levels—in party platforms and resolutions—to commit to redirecting wasteful and unnecessary military spending to meet human needs. This commitment must start with comprehensive, guaranteed health care—driven by the needs of patients and the judgment of doctors. We call on Democrats to support a plan that eliminates any financial barriers between the patient and healthcare providers, resulting in a patient not receiving medically necessary care.

We call on members of Congress to bring the troops home from Iraq and to pass H.R. 676, Rep. John Conyers' bill which guarantees comprehensive publicly-funded, privately-delivered health care for everyone in the U.S. Go to Signing Site

If you believe like I do that healthcare is a right and not a privilege, please join me in signing the petition. Thanks for whatever you can do for real peace and true justice.

Peace hugs,
Kate Anne

Krugman: Health Care Excuses

This is one to file -- as Paul Krugman says you're going to hear the excuses "again, and again, and again". Be ready to refute health care profiteers , with some help from Paul.

Health Care Excuses
by Paul Krugman
published [in the New York Times]: Nov. 9, 2007

The United States spends far more on health care per person than any other nation. Yet we have lower life expectancy than most other rich countries. Furthermore, every other advanced country provides all its citizens with health insurance; only in America is a large fraction of the population uninsured or underinsured.

You might think that these facts would make the case for major reform of America’s health care system — reform that would involve, among other things, learning from other countries’ experience — irrefutable. Instead, however, apologists for the status quo offer a barrage of excuses for our system’s miserable performance.

So I thought it would be useful to offer a catalog of the most commonly heard apologies for American health care, and the reasons they won’t wash.

Excuse No. 1: No insurance, no problem. MORE or MORE

Let's work on getting the healthcare crisis in America resolved and being prepared with facts will help in conversations and when writing letters. Sometimes I include a copy of a well-written article with a note to my legislator(s). It all adds up. Bottom line, the profit motive should not be a factor in providing healing. A good living, fine, but a killing, NO. And don't they keep telling us we're the number one country? (Hello! Well, maybe we are number one in health care cost.) Health care now! Please act: write letters, make phone calls, elect people who will work to see us get good healthcare.

Peace hugs,
Kate Anne

P.S. I have petitions for JOHN EDWARDS for President - sign mine, fellow New Yorkers, or help! Call 212-229-2029 to assist.

I Care2

Missing the Blogger profile links the other week, I discovered the My.Care2 community and the ability to find folks with common interests by posting topics, movies, books, etc. and then clicking on them. I've spent time developing my page -- click the title link to view -- sort of a MySpace for the caring community. Care2.com does a lot of petition work and encourages activism. This is all right up my alley of course, and it looks like fun (should I post on my page the YouTube video my daughter Kat did of my Las Vegas karaoke debut?) but I went to blog an invitation to my friends to join me on Care2 and low and behold, as I clicked on my Kate Anne profile here on Blogger, I see the Blogger profile links are back. Go figure!!

That said, it looks like a good community -- and it made for a good Saturday night out ... on the web :-) So if you do have a Care2 profile, find me. (I am currently friendless!) And if you have a Blogger profile, add some detail to your profile and let's all have fun enjoying each other and new folks.

It has been quite a week at work so I need some fun. I even claimed some of my overtime. I did take some time out this week, however, to join some of my WQIDC friends for dinner and Sicko. OMG -- the profit motive in healing must be curtailed. Make a living, not a killing! When CEO McGuire of United Health Care made 1.6 billion in compensation last year that defined real obscenity -- and greed. So much to do for peace and justice -- but I must create peace in my own life too. And care for myself -- so I can care for others later on down the line.

United for Peace and Justice is planning a big demonstration for peace in Iraq on October 27th. But there is work to be done now -- both for it and for peace and justice in general. That should also mean IMPEACHMENT. (I did notice that Care2 has an impeachment group -- maybe more than one.) I will have to add that to my concerns, come to think of it. Hey, I'm an ENFP -- choices!!! But now I better choose to go to bed so that I can get enough sleep to have a reasonably productive Sunday.

My thanks to Care2 for a pleasant evening -- and to AOL for supplying background music with their AOL radio feature. Now, "To sleep, perchance to dream."

Peace hugs,
Kate Anne