Marc Stier at Large

The final vote on health care reform is going to be close. And Dennis Kucinich may be the one vote between victory and defeat. Kucinich says he won’t vote for the bill because it is a bail out of insurance companies and is not his preferred way of reforming health care, single payer. So far, only a very few advocates for single payer, who could have substantial influence over Kucinich, has asked him to vote for the bill. As far as I know, no one from Pennsylvania, which has one of the most active and impressive movements for single payer, has asked him to support the bill. As far as I know, Pennsylvania single payer advocates like Walter Tsou and Chuck Pennachio have said that the legislation should be defeated. This is very hard for me to understand for a few reasons. Continue reading

The bill we are supporting in Washington is not perfect. It’s not what I’ve worked for in the last twenty months. But it will save tens of thousands of lives, keep hundreds of thousands out of bankruptcy, reduce the suffering of millions, and improve the living standard and reduce the anxiety of tens of millions. And like all the other half-way measures and compromised bills that have characterized American reform efforts, including the Social Security Act of 1935 and the Medicare Act of 1965, it will create its own pressure for expansion and further reform. Continue reading

I’m working pretty much night and day to get health care reform enacted in Washington, DC. Health care reform is, I believe, going to pass, although it’s going to be close in the House. But I just realized what passing health care reform in Washington might mean for our efforts in Pennsylvania. Continue reading

After 20 months, this part of our campaign for quality, affordable health care for all is coming to an end. We are fairly sure the critical vote in the House of Representatives will take place by Saturday. The vote will be very close, and health care reform won’t be enacted without an outpouring of grassroots energy that can overcome the powerful insurance company interests that are trying to block it. So many of you in Pennsylvania have been doing so much for so long. Over the last three weeks, Pennsylvanians have led the way at two events in Washington. Hundreds of you joined us for the end of Melanie’s March and for the exciting anti- health insurance company rally last week. But whether you have been an active participant in the campaign or not, I must ask you to do everything you can in this crucial last week to make our dream… Continue reading

As a political science teacher for twenty five years, I argued that the mainstream media was not systematically biased against progressives. I was wrong. But I’m still not sure what the problem is. I don’t know if it is the economic interests of publishers—which I still kind of doubt is important; or the fact that political reporters have a vested interest in making politicians and citizens seem even more divided than they really are; or whether the habitual skepticism of reporters makes them focus more on the likelihood of failure than the possibility of success. And maybe all of these factors are exacerbated because political reporters really only have the time to understand the gross politics of issues rather than the details of politics or policy. But for one or another of these reasons, most of the news reports about health care reform in the mainstream media, and certainly in the… Continue reading

We progressives are distraught over losing something that is important to our vision of health care reform: a public option that would compete with private insurance and hold down health insurance costs. Make no mistake, that was, indeed a loss. But the public option was not the only important feature of the legislation we have been supporting. Indeed, while holding down costs are important to this country, the fundamental moral issue is making sure that everyone can get affordable health care. And, if the conference committee process goes as we expect, on that critical issue we are going to win a major victory. The reform bills before Congress will take this country close to the ideal of making health care a right not a privilege. They will make health insurance affordable for almost all Americans and do more to help working and middle class Americans than any government program since… Continue reading

We are getting very close to the end of this year’s battle on health care reform. President Obama and the Congressional leadership have agreed on a path to enacting much of what we wanted by the end of this month. The first, critical vote may come as early as March 19. But we need your help to bring it home. Can you join us next Tuesday, March 9, on a bus to DC for a final push for health care reform and against the insurance companies? RSVP here http://hcanpa.org/m9 for a bus leaving from Philadelphia at 7:00 am from Love Park. Other buses are leaving from Doylestown, Fairless Hills, Plymouth Meeting, and ten other cities in the state. Continue reading