Urgent: Support Kucinich State Single-Payer Amendment

from After Downing Street

Rep. Dennis Kucinich has proposed a crucial amendment for single-payer healthcare and we urgently need you to call one or more of the 26 Democrats on the House Education and Labor Committee. Our message is simple:

Please support Rep. Kucinich's Amendment today to let states create single-payer healthcare systems. The federal government should give states the freedom to fix our health care crisis.

You can call any time and leave a voicemail if no one answers. If you do speak with a staffer, please post their reply here:
http://tr.im/sJeO

You can also urge your Senators and Representatives to support the Single Payer Health Plan (H.R. 676) by signing our petition:
http://tr.im/sJfk

The Kucinich Amendment would let individual states create single-payer healthcare systems even if Congress fails to create a nationwide single-payer system.

That's exactly how Canada evolved towards single-payer: one province at a time. Given the corporate-funded resistance to single-payer in Congress, the U.S. may have to follow the Canadian path.

Progressive activists in California, Illinois and Pennsylvania are leading the way for single-payer systems and the Kucinich Amendment would remove the legal roadblocks they face.

The fate of the Kucinich Amendment rests in the hands of the 26 Democrats below. Please call as many as you can.

George Miller (CA-7) 202-225-2095
Dale Kildee (MI-5) 202-225-3611
Donald Payne (NJ-10) 202-225-3436
Robert Andrews (NJ-1) 202-225-6501
Bobby Scott (VA-3) 202-225-8351
Lynn Woolsey (CA-6) 202-225-5161
Ruben Hinojosa (TX-15) 202-225-2531
Carolyn McCarthy (NY-4) 202-225-5516
John Tierney (MA-6) 202-225-8020
David Wu (OR-1) 202-225-0855
Rush Holt (NJ-12) 202-225-5801
Susan Davis (CA-53) 202-225-2040
Raul Grijalva (AZ-7) 202-225-2435
Tim Bishop (NY-1) 202-225-3826
Joe Sestak (PA-7) 202-225-2011
David Loebsack (IA-2) 202-225-6576
Mazie Hirono (HI-2) 202-225-4906
Jason Altmire (PA-4) 202-225-2565
Phil Hare (IL-17) 202-225-5905
Yvette Clarke (NY-11) 202-225-6231
Joe Courtney (CT-2) 202-225-2076
Carol Shea-Porter (NH-1) 202-225-5456
Marcia Fudge (OH-11) 202-225-7032
Jared Polis (CO-2) 202-225-2161
Paul Tonko (NY-21) 202-225-5076
Dina Titus (NV-3) 202-225-3252<

Is Health Care Working for You?

From: Marc Laitin, AFL-CIO <peoplepower@aflcio.org>

Congress is back in session, and it's looking more and more like real health care reform is on the way. The insurance company lobby is making lots of noise here in D.C., and it's critical that your voice is heard in this process. Take the 2009 Health Care for America Survey today, tell us your story and help shape health care reform this year. Together, we can help bring real health care reform to America.

Speak Against O'Reilly & Rush

Over the weekend Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh lambasted Democracy for America and Brave New PAC for running the following TV advertisement asking why John McCain is hiding his health records:

Rush said, "These people will stop at nothing"

Bill O'Reilly called it "the most vicious political ad of the campaign."

O'Reilly, running scared, went on to attack MSNBC and their network executives for allowing the ad to air in the first place. Shortly after, NBC informed us that they were pulling the ad.

Evidently, O'Reilly is now calling the shots at NBC. Bill O'Reilly shouldn't get to choose what you can watch on television. Call NBC right now and tell them to run the ad.

NBC SwitchBoard
(212) 664-4444

CLICK HERE TO REPORT YOUR CALL

Asking John McCain to release his health records is fair and legitimate. The fact that Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly are on the attack is proof they don't want to know the truth.

If the traditional media lets wingnut talking heads like Limbaugh and O'Reilly control the agenda, we might as well throw any semblance of free speech out the window.

Call NBC right now. Tell them Bill O'Reilly doesn't speak for you. We stand with over 2,500 doctors who believe this important question should be heard. America has a right to know the answer.

CLICK HERE TO TELL US HOW YOUR CALL WENT

ALERT: Urge Override of Bush SCHIP Veto

George W. Bush's veto of SCHIP – the State Children's Health Insurance Program – prevents the provision of basic health coverage to nearly 4 million uninsured children in the United States.

On Thursday, October 18, the US House of Representatives will vote on overriding the President's veto of the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act (H.R. 976). The Act would reauthorize SCHIP, while also improving the quality and efficiency of the entire health care system.

Background

SCHIP has significantly improved children's access to health care, and has made great strides in covering racial and ethnic minority children.

After the inception of SCHIP, the uninsured rate for African-American and Asian and Pacific Islander children dropped by half: from 20 to 12 percent and from 17 to 8 percent, respectively.

For Latino children, the uninsured rate dropped by nearly one-third, from a high of 30 percent to 21 percent.

Despite the program’s success, nine million children remain uninsured, more than five million of whom are racial and ethnic minorities. And President Bush’s solution: to veto the reauthorization act that would have added enough funding for approximately 4 million more children. We cannot let Bush's solution stand, a solution that could deny millions of children access to health care if the SCHIP program is not extended.

Call 202-224-3121 TODAY and URGE your representative to continue the bipartisan tradition of support for SCHIP and pass the Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act (H.R. 976). Don't let Bush's veto of SCHIP stand in the way of insuring one of our country's most vulnerable populations: poor children.

ALERT: Help Override Bush's Veto of Health Care for Kids

From the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee:

If you're like most Americans, you feel that our health care system is broken. It doesn't serve every child, regardless of their family's income level. But George W. Bush just vetoed a bill that would fix this problem - denying 10 million kids the health care they need and deserve!

More Republicans are reconsidering their vote on CHIP and the efforts to override Bush's veto are gaining momentum. We need to keep up the pressure and fight to even the score for kids.

Stand up for the children: Sign a petition to demand Republicans join the rest of Congress in an emergency override of Bush's immoral and callous veto.

ALERT: Tell Hospitals to Come Clean

From Consumers Union:

Next week (October 14-20) is Hospital Infection Prevention Week and the first line of defense against hospital-acquired infections is clean hands.

Please take a few minutes this week to ask your local hospital to come clean. Ask them to tell the community how they comply with one of the easiest and most effective ways to prevent hospital infections: hand washing.

Just because hand washing is easy, doesn't mean they are doing it:

• Nearly 2 million patients get an infection while hospitalized every year and almost 100,000 of them die; the cost of their hospital care alone is around $27.5 billion.
  
  
• We know cleaning hands is a key factor in reducing infections; yet studies consistently reveal that hand washing compliance rates in hospitals are generally around 50 percent.

We need your help to get your local hospitals' hand hygiene compliance rate released to the public.

For the past several years, many hospitals have launched hand hygiene campaigns and made effective alcohol-based cleansers available throughout the hospital. But we have no idea if these efforts have actually led to improved hand cleaning.

Take a minute to help make Hospital Infection Prevention Week successful, click here for two ways to ask your hospital to release its hand washing compliance rate.