Category: Health Care

We are at a crossroads for healthcare President Obama’s budget, which includes $634 billion in the budget as a down payment on health care reform, is before the Congress. This is critical. If Congress does not pass a budget that funds health care reform, it won’t happen this year in any form. Click here to call your Members of Congress to tell them to fund health care reform now! President Obama with your support has said that we can’t fix our economy if we don’t reform health care. But the momentum we have built for winning quality affordable health care for all this year will stop in its tracks if the President’s budget fails. Health Care For America NOW ahs put together some easy-to-use talking points to help you send a strong message to your Members of Congress that you support the President’s budget. Can you give your Members of… Continue reading

Daily News, February 11, 2009 People who suffer from chronic diseases are vulnerable to temporary maladies. Those with heart disease, asthma or diabetes sometimes find a bad accident or the flu creating an acute crisis. People sometimes discover chronic illnesses only when acute problems make them evident. And sometimes, it is impossible to deal with a medical crisis without addressing the underlying chronic problems. What is true for our health is also true for health care. Health care in theUnited Statessuffers from chronic maladies. The current economic crisis is showing us how bad they are. That’s why an economic recovery bill that includes initial steps toward health care reform is before the Congress now. One chronic problem is the rising cost of health care, which increases two to three times faster than inflation. Businesses, governments and individuals face insurance premium increases of up to ten percent per year. The recession… Continue reading

The Economic Recovery Package that passed the House last week is now before the Senate. The Republicans are planning a filibuster. Some Democrats are wobbly. And so we are going to need at least two and possibly more Republican votes. The right-wing is going all out to defeat the bill, thinking that if they beat President Obama now, they can derail his entire domestic program. We can’t allow them to succeed. Continue reading

Stop speeding on the drives! Remember how the city demanded that the state police replace the city police in patrolling the Expressway, just as they patrol interstate highways in the rest of the state? Well it happened with interesting consequences elswhere anyone who live in NW Philly should know about. The police officers who formerly patrolled the Expressway have no been reassigned to East (Kelly) and West (ML King)River and Lincoln Drive. The officers who used to be assigned to the drives have been reassigned to the districts. This is a good thing in a few respects. It in effect gives us more police officers on patrol in the city. And the reassigned Expressway officers are taking their job a lot more seriously than the old timers they have replaced. Wednesday morning, for example, seven people had been stopped and warned or ticketed for speeding by 9:30 in the morning.… Continue reading

Submitted by Marc Stier on Mon, 01/12/2009 – 3:34am. Be There for Health Care! Welcome people on Saturday, January 17th as they line up to hear President-Elect Barack Obama at the first stop of his train trip to Washington before his inauguration As a volunteer greeter on Saturday January 17th, you will be part of the largest mobilization of health care for all advocates Philadelphia has ever seen! Volunteers will: ·Work in pairs signing up folks as they wait on line to enter the speech venue. ·Ask everyone to sign a post card to Senators Specter and Casey – Calling for guaranteed, quality, affordable health care for all. – Endorsing the Obama / Health Care For America Now principles of health care reform that call for every American to be able to choose affordable health insurance either from their current insurer, another private insurance plan or a public plan open… Continue reading

The movement for health Care reform is moving forward now. And it has to because defeating the insurance companies is going to take a massive effort. . President-elect Obama has a mandate for reform having made the issue central to his campaign. Obama spent over $100 million in health care television advertising and, in October, 86 percent of his total ad budget was spent on advertisements that mentioned the issue. And in case anyone was wondering whether the financial and economic crises are going to delay health care reform, the answer is “no.” As President-elect Obama said time and time again, reforming health care is critical to fixing our economy. That’s why the Obama team and Health Care For America Now is moving forward to build our movement now. President-elect Obama is asking people to hold house parties to discuss health care reform in the next two weeks. I’m holding… Continue reading

Members of City Council were quick to point out last Wednesday that Mayor Nutter has the power to cut the city budget without their approval. That is true. But what they didn’t point out is that Council can mandate that the city provide certain services. And that decision constrains the Mayor’s budget authority. A few years ago Mayor Street announced that the city could not afford to pick up trash from condos and would stop doing so. He claimed that under his budget authority he could cut back this service. City Council passed an ordinance requiring the city to pick up trash at Condos. Here my memory gets a little hazy. But I believe the Mayor said he would ignore it, Council sued, and won. Trash pickup at condos continues to this day. So if Council wants to mandate that the Free Library have branches at, say 54 particular locations… Continue reading

This is, many of us keep saying, the moment we have been waiting for, the transformative moment in our politics when dramatic change is possible, when we will finally guarantee quality affordable health care for all. As we keep saying it, we hear the other voices tell us that, no, we have to wait, that the economic crisis we face is too severe, requires too much attention, and will be too costly. But a close look at history, at our present crisis and our politics, should teach all of us, including President-elect Obama that the pessimistic voices are wrong. This is the moment for health care reform. And that is one reason you should come to the Neighborhood Networks Town Hall meeting tomorrow. For whether we actually we take advantage of this moment for health care reform is, in large part, up to us. Continue reading