On Tuesday, April 6, 2010, 150 people rallied at 12:00 Noon to tell Tom Corbett to drop his lawsuit against health care reform. We were joined by Congressmen Chaka Fattah and Bob Brady, Mayor Michael Nutter, and State Representative Dwight Evans.
Why were we rallying again for health care reform so soon after the legislation passed.
It used to be that when the US Congress passed legislation, we went on to other matters while waiting to see how it was implemented. Then, after we had some idea how the new programs worked, political leaders and activists would start devote energy to improving, changing or repealing it.
The opposition to health care reform, however, is not waiting. They are determined to stand against the idea that health care is now a right not a privilege in America. They will not accept a democratically elected government taking action to address the health care problem, the most serious long term moral and economic difficulty that we have faced in this country for years.
And they know that once people begin to receive the benefits of reform, it will never be repealed, only expanded.
So opponents of health care reform won’t stop. They have recruited Republican Attorney Generals, like our Tom Corbett, to file a frivolous suit against the legislation. And they want to make health care reform the central issue the 2010 election.
My response is the same as President Obama’s: bring it on. Let’s have that debate. I have no doubt that when Americans hear about all the immediate benefits of reform and how health care reform will create 200,000 jobs in Pennsylvania over the next ten years, more and more of them will be grateful for the legislation we just enacted.