This is the week!
The Weiner Amendment for Single Payer is expected to go to a floor vote in the House of Representatives on Thursday, October 15.
Please--get busy, get to the phone, and call on your Representative to support single payer. Thanks for all you've done to date... now, we are coming down to the wire!
The Weiner Amendment substitutes a single payer bill for the complicated and fiscally unsustainable legislation being considered by the House. For information on the current single payer bill, HR 676, see this page on Rep. John Conyers's website. Rep. Conyers is the primary sponsor of HR 676, which currently has 88 co-sponsors. Rep. Joe Baca (CA-43) signed up last week, so it is not too late to ask your representative to co-sponsor too!
Don't just get mad that the health [sic] care industry has spent $380 million-plus on lobbying and advertising in just the last few months.... or that the Senate Finance Committee bill was written by a former Wellpoint V.P., now Baucus' principle staffer on health care reform... or that a recent study documented that more than 44,000 Americans die each year for lack of insurance.
Get busy!
* Call your representative and ask that he or she vote to support the Weiner Amendment.
* Ask your rep to also support the Kucinich amendment so state governments can create their own single payer programs.
* On the Senate side, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) will introduce two single-payer amendments to the Senate health care bill. One to create a national single-payer plan, the other to allow states to adopt single-payer. Your senators need to hear from you as well. Call them now!
* Finally, forward this email. Tell everyone on your lists to let their voices be heard before it's too late.
As Leonard Rodberg has written, we're being presented with a false choice. Some Democrats and pundits claim we need to pass a plan--any plan--to avoid a Gingrich-style House takeover next year. But the plan, he writes, "is a DOG... Relatively few people will benefit from it, while everyone who has to use health care will continue to experience the mess that is, and will continue to be, the American health care system."
As long as money drives politics, politicians will follow the lead of donors, not voters. As long as health care is a for-profit business for investors, premiums will rise and insurers will cherry-pick the healthiest and wealthiest subscribers.
We say health care is a right and our government should respond to our call for a health care system that respects the people's right to decent, affordable care. We demand single payer, the real cure for ailing health care and a damaged democracy.
Make your call today! Thank you!
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