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Netroots Nation: The Internet and the Health Care Movement |
Health care is guaranteed to be at the forefront of the 2008 election, and, more importantly, the fight to build a better health care system will be one of the toughest fights when a new administration takes over in 2009.
Bloggers, experts and activists are using online tools in innovative ways to make sure we can win high-quality health care for all. At Netroots Nation, some of the people leading this effort took part in an important panel, Emerging Trends in Healthcare Online.
Melinda Gibson works for Health Care for America Now, a coalition of more than 80 groups working to build a grassroots movement to mobilize voters around health care during, and after, the election. HCAN has both an on-the-ground component and an online effort. Says Gibson:
We’re asking businesses and elected officials, “Which side are you on? Are you on the side of affordable, quality heath care for everyone, or are you on the side of the insurance companies?” We want to elevate the issue of health care for voters this November to make it a top priority in the election, and tie it to the economy, because health care is 20 percent of the economy.
As one of the strategies to raise the issue of health care, HCAN has released a hilarious video highlighting the “insurance company rules” that are blocking access to affordable care.
Julia Eisman is the internet director at Families USA, a health care advocacy organization that’s stepping up its online efforts. The fight over the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) provided Families USA with a model. Families USA grew its activist base through that issue, as thousands of people e-mailed Congress. Says Eisman:
The SCHIP fight showed that people will rally around health care online–it’s not just a top-down issue. Health care historically hasn’t had a strong grassroots movement, but the Internet can help people get engaged and feel like they’re part of the process.
Later this year, Families USA will launch a website aimed at that broad audience, to get them engaged through the election and beyond.
One way that Families USA is focusing its outreach is by educating people about pre-existing conditions and how insurance companies use them to limit access to care.
Eisman says there’s a sense of hopelessness that’s an impediment to health care activism because it’s such a big, complicated issue. More information, and a sense there’s a chance to really reform health care, can help turn that around.
Ezra Klein is a blogger and health care policy thinker who combines journalism and opinion about health care on his site. Klein describes the current broken heath care system as “a sick system that nobody would have designed.”
The current system’s incentives are moving more and more people into the uninsured. In 1994, we had 35 million uninsured, now we have 47 million. We need new incentives that move people toward care.
He says the progressive movement that’s building around health care has learned the lessons of 1994, when misleading information about Bill Clinton’s effort for health care reform, and big-money television ad buys, helped kill the reform effort. The misleading information and ad money came from the people who made money off of health care—the insurance industry.
Klein says websites and blogs allow the voices for reform to have a say and respond directly to insurance company efforts to block reform.
This alternative communications network can be used to create a counter-narrative to what’s going to come out of big-money interests. You’re able to target your influence with enormous speed.
Gibson agrees that the speed of Internet activism will be important. Rapid response is key to creating a better media narrative. The insurance industry is launching a huge countermovement to try to undermine the health care movement, but AFSCME, ACORN and other organizations have been able to quickly strike back using online tools to blunt the insurance companies’ staged coalition. Says Gibson:
This time, we’re going to beat them. We know their game, we have the money and the people. We have online tools.
HCAN and Families USA are using one of the most powerful tools available: the real-world stories of people hurt by the failures of our health care system. The same strategy was at the heart of the AFL-CIO’s Health Care for America Survey earlier this year, which engaged more than 26,000 people and gathered more than 7,000 personal stories.
Thanks to the efforts of these online activists, labor groups, community organizations and experts will have new advantages in the coming fight to ensure that no one in America goes without health care.
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Well it appears right now the majority of members in Congress are on the side of insurance companies. See the numbers below, it tells a message that the AFL-CIO seems to be ignoring. HCAN wants affordable health care, but wants to include the insurance companies in the picture. As long as insurance lobbyist have their say, we will continue with the same old system we live in now; higher premiums, less coverage or care, continued denials of coverage for procedures, higher medication costs. 47 million people are still left out, that number will rise because of the failing economy that will result in more layoffs.
Single payer is the only solution!
HR 676 would institute a single payer health care system in the U.S. by expanding a greatly improved Medicare system to every resident.
HR 676 would cover every person in the U. S. for all necessary medical care including prescription drugs, hospital, surgical, outpatient services, primary and preventive care, emergency services, dental, mental health, home health, physical therapy, rehabilitation (including for substance abuse), vision care, chiropractic and long term care.
HR 676 ends deductibles and co-payments. HR 676 would save billions annually by eliminating the high overhead and profits of the private health insurance industry and HMOs.
HR 676 currently has 90 co-sponsors in addition to Conyers.
Co-sponsors and bill text are here:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:h.r.00676:
HR 676 has been endorsed by 443 union organizations in 48 states
including 110 Central Labor Councils and Area Labor Federations and 35 state AFL-CIO’s (KY, PA, CT, OH, DE, ND, WA, SC, WY, VT, FL, WI, WV, SD, NC, MO, MN, ME, AR, MD-DC, TX, IA, AZ, TN, OR, GA, OK, KS, CO, IN, AL, CA, AK, MI & MT).
HCAN should open their eyes and jump on board for REAL health care reform and the solution to the health care crisis.
Universal Health Care
A poem by David G. Hurlburt 2007
Health care is our basic human right.
Now is the time to stand up and fight.
Put our money and our vote up on the line.
Get up on our feet and walk a picket line.
Dial a phone or write a letter,
Do it so every one will feel better.
Why should only the rich have medical care?
And the poor kids die but Bush doesn’t care?
Get out of your chair and in to the street.
It is time for us all to vote with our feet.
Show and tell politicians, turn up the heat.
If we all fight together we can not be beat.
The Iraqis get universal health care,
The rules of war require that its there.
Prisoners in Git-mo get medical care.
But not all Americans that’s just not fair?
What about the hard working poor?
They need medical care for sure?
The system is broken it profits the greedy.
Let us fix the system to serve the needy.
Bush and Cheney are the real Sicko’s,
Impeachment is needed don’t you know.
Denial of health care to all is a high crime,
Remove them from office it is way past time.
While we are at it Health care for profit must go.
Single payer health care for all is the way to go.
Overhead and profit is just another poison pill.
We have had enough we have taken our fill.
Skyrocketing premiums, deductibles and co-pay,
Caused by advertising, profit and big CEO pay.
It must be stopped now and here is the fix.
There is a bill in the congress HR six seven six.
True Democrat hits the nail on the head! As veteran and/or new activists we must recognize the fallacy of believing that the health insurance companies want real reform!
These parasites have made billions off of us and have no intention of allowing real reform to occur without putting up a fight! Viable legislation such as H.R. 676 is an anathema to the insurance lobby and their flunkies in Congress!
We must take this fight to the street as we did in the 30’s and when we beat Jim Crow in the 60’s!
Healthcare is a basic human right recognized as such around the globe except in the United States! We must say ENOUGH! MEDICARE FOR ALL!
In Massachusetts where landmark health care reform has taken place we IBEW members face yet another strike deadline where the issue is health insurance and to add insult to injury retiree healthcare cuts. The issue of healthcare reform goes beyond simply insuring the uninsured and providing “affordable” plans to those of modest means. The problem is insurance companies control how healthcare is delivered or if it is delivered at all; who will pay and how much will be payed to cover the insurance company exorbitant exec salaries and administrative waste.
Union members have enjoyed the benefits of pensions, health insurance and good wages only to become victims of our own success in the form of layoffs, strikes, slow job growth resulting from unfair competitive advantages of non-union no benefit employers and competitors from countries with national health insurance. Our payroll tax dollars subsidize the likes of Walmart where employee wages are kept low enough to qualify for public plans, our real estate taxes are inflated because the same insurance companies that are breaking our backs at the bargaining table are squeezing what they can out of our public employees driving up our town budgets. It is time for a national plan that kicks the insurance industry out and allows a level playing field for all Americans a chance recieve comprehensive quality care. H.R. 676 will do exactly that.
Unions will find it easier to grow jobs in an equally competitive market where every employer pays the same per employee cost for health insurance. We will find it easier to negotiate the 3.3 % cost of 676 than fighting over what our employee contributions will be this contract and how much will the co-pays and deductible go up. Don’t be fooled by alleged success of the Massachusetts mandate, it insured those that qualified for MassHealth in the firstplace and fined those that could not afford health insurance. This is reforming our healthcare system? Lets hope the ibew members in massachusetts don’t have to strike again over health care in the state of alleged universal healthcare for america-not