{"id":163,"date":"2009-06-04T19:12:56","date_gmt":"2009-06-04T13:12:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/marcstier.org\/Wordpress\/?p=163"},"modified":"2011-07-23T22:05:40","modified_gmt":"2011-07-23T22:05:40","slug":"tell-the-blue-dogs-to-support-the-public-health-insurance-option-without-a-trigger-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/?p=163","title":{"rendered":"Tell the Blue Dogs to support the public health insurance option without a trigger. Today!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color:black; font-family:Verdana; font-size:9pt\">It was two steps forward and one step back on health care reform yesterday.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color:black; font-family:Verdana; font-size:9pt\">That&#8217;s why we need you to make a critical phone call to PA members of the Blue Dog Coalition-Congressmen Patrick Murphy, Tim Holden, Chris Carney, and Jason Altmire, this morning to ask him to reaffirm his support for a public health insurance option in the health care reform legislation being drafted in Congress? You can call toll free at 1-888-436-8427.<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family:Verdana; font-size:9pt\"><span style=\"color:black\">Yesterday, in a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hcanpa.org\/img\/Obama_letter.pdf\"\/><\/span><span style=\"color:#3399cc\"><strong>letter<\/strong><\/span><span style=\"color:black\"> to Senators Kennedy and Baucus President Obama reaffirmed his support for giving all Americans &#8220;the choice of a public health insurance option operating alongside private plans.&#8221; &#8220;This will give them,&#8221; he wrote, &#8220;a better range of choices, make the health care market more competitive, and keep insurance companies honest.&#8221;<br \/>\n<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family:Verdana; font-size:9pt\"><span style=\"color:black\">But the Blue Dog Coalition, a group of 51 House Democrats that includes Representative Murphy, said yesterday that the public health insurance plan should only come into effect if it is &#8220;triggered&#8221; by a failure of private insurers to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2009\/06\/04\/health\/policy\/04health.html?scp=1&amp;sq=blue%20dog&amp;st=cse\"\/><\/span><span style=\"color:#3399cc\"><strong>&#8220;rein in costs and offer affordable coverage to everyone<\/strong><\/span><span style=\"color:black\">.&#8221;<br \/>\n<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family:Verdana; font-size:9pt\"><span style=\"color:black\">Private insurance has already failed to meet this test. Two weeks ago, HCAN criticized Independence Blue Cross for seeking to raise <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hcanpa.org\/?p=67\"\/><\/span><span style=\"color:#3399cc\"><strong>premiums for non-group insurance up to 52%<\/strong><\/span><span style=\"color:black\">. And yesterday we released a report that shows why premiums are going up so fast, because the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hcanpa.org\/?p=108\"\/><\/span><span style=\"color:#3399cc\"><strong>health insurance market in most regions in Pennsylvania and in most other states is overwhelmingly dominated by one company<\/strong><\/span><span style=\"color:black\">.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color:black; font-family:Verdana; font-size:9pt\">So, please call the PA Blued Dogs him today at 1-888-436-8427. them to exclude the trigger from the Blue Dog health care reform principles. Tell him that we need a public health insurance plan now<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color:black; font-family:Verdana; font-size:9pt\">\u2022 to make sure that everyone has health insurance they can count on even if they change jobs<br \/>\u2022 to compete with private insurance to hold down costs.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color:black; font-family:Verdana; font-size:9pt\">Tell them that as a fiscal conservatives, they should support the competition a public health insurance plan will provide.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color:black; font-family:Verdana; font-size:9pt\">Tell them that this is the only way we can provide quality health care for all at a cost affordable both to families and taxpayers.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color:black; font-family:Verdana; font-size:9pt\">Call today at 888-436-8427.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color:black; font-family:Verdana; font-size:9pt\">With your support, in 2009 we will finally realize our dream of providing a guarantee of quality affordable health care to all.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It was two steps forward and one step back on health care reform yesterday. That&#8217;s why we need you to make a critical phone call to PA members of the Blue Dog Coalition-Congressmen Patrick Murphy, Tim Holden, Chris Carney, and Jason Altmire, this morning to ask him to reaffirm his support for a public health insurance option in the health care reform legislation being drafted in Congress? You can call toll free at 1-888-436-8427. <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/?p=163\">Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p35YuU-2D","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=163"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5861,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163\/revisions\/5861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}