Excercise Democracy? When?

Merry Christmas!

... Merry Christmas??? ... The young father of a neighbor died a few days ago of cancer. I wonder if he is one of the statistics of the couple of HUNDRED real people who DIE EACH DAY UNNECESSARILY in the United States simply because we have such poor health care performance compared to other industrialized countries.

In the past 13-14 months, even though over half of Americans support non-profit single-payer national health insurance, Americans have made zero progress in getting it.

There is something seriously wrong. We STILL need have the need to exercise our democracy.

A "Prepare for Change" strategy involves single-payer activists
1) educating citizens,
2) getting some of the educated to be participants by getting reminders to communicate to their U.S. Representatives,
3) getting some of the educated to tell 3 other persons,
4) giving a short training session to those citizens who wish to themselves become activists so that they are prepared to tell more than 3 other citizens.

--- NOTE that this strategy mainly requires time and effort; there are NO requests for activists or citizens to send money to a state or national organization, and there is NO need to spend money on brochures, posters, and so on. Anyone can do this no-budget, low-expense grassroots strategy. [Those activists who go to multiple cities will need to cover their own personal expenses, such as for transportation and phone calls.]

The "Prepare for Change" strategy is required, because people are naturally concerned about change. Even people who know that they care have been too readily influenced by those organizations and individuals who have spent and are still spending literally hundreds of millions of dollars to oppose what EVERY other industrialized nation in the world has had for many years ... with BETTER health of citizens and with citizens having PEACE of MIND!

The influence of money and propaganda has caused people (who know in their heart that we need non-profit financing of health care) to have their opinions swayed when it comes to key moments ... like voting on ballot issues (Oregon, California, and probably others).

We are at a MOST CRITICAL time. If we do not act NOW then 2010 will see the FURTHER dismantling of Medicare. The U.S. Congress in 2003 established the plan that in 2010 Medicare will go MORE to privatization! This is the WRONG direction!

It is time to exercise Our Representative Democracy. We must have thousands of participants in EVERY U.S. Congressional District.

The choice is simple. Either we follow a "Prepare for Change" strategy or we continue to have zero progress.

Exercise Democracy

Happy July 4th!

It is time to exercise Our Representative Democracy

We, the citizens, need to provide a massive set of communications to the members of the U.S. Congress: thousands of participants writing notes to each U.S. Representative.

The activity is a top priority action within the national Health Care for All movement.

The choice is simple. Either we do this activity or we fail. To not do this activity is suicide to our efforts.

We must educate each other!

We must motivate each other to communicate!

• Have you written your note this month (for March, June, September, December)?
  
• Have you called this month (for the remaining 8 months of the year)?

205-277 people EVERY day

My previous post was "60 People EVERY Day." Now I often also think of the 205 to 277 people who die every day in the United States under age 75.

These are UNNECESSARY DEATHS. Why are they not necessary? The United States is the bottom of 19 countries in its ability to minimize the number of deaths due to preventable diseases.

• As per a study partly funded by the Commonwealth Fund, which announced the results in January 2008:

• The U.S. ranked 15th out of 19 using 1997-1998 data.
• The U.S. ranked 19th out of 19 using 2002-2003 data.
  • Rankings from 1st to 19th: France, Japan, Australia, Spain, Italy, Canada, Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden, Greece, Austria, Germany, Finland, New Zealand, Denmark, Britain, Ireland, Portugal, United States

The researchers (E. Nolte and M. McKee) estimated how many lives would be saved in the United States if the U.S. performed better ...

205 people EVERY day
would NOT be dying
if we were only
average in performance
among 19 countries
in minimizing preventable deaths

For more explanation go to www.99oh9.org and select "Real People" ... or go directly to that web page.

60 people EVERY day

Ever since I saw the January 10 PNHP Quote-of-the-Day, I have often thought of the 60 people, on average, who die every day in the United States under age 65 due to the fact that those people did not and do not have health insurance.

Whether or not you were already aware of the update of the number of deaths from 18,000 per year (50 per day) in 2000 to 22,000 per year (60 per day), please read or re-read Doctor Don McCanne's comments.

60 people EVERY day

Please remember that this number is ONLY those who die due to uninsurance. As Dr. McCanne highlights, it does not count the number who died due to underinsurance.

What's In It for ME?

A couple of days ago a close friend said that Americans want to know what's in it for them in terms of immediate benefits ... such as in Joining Nine-Nine-Oh-Nine! to give some indication that there is interest in writing notes to the U.S. Congress.

Isn't it good enough to have a more caring society ... and remember the details that preceded of Sally Brown's death on the 10th of January 2008?

Examples of those details:

• "asthma, emphysema and congestive heart failure"
• "every breath an agony"
• "little more than a year to live"
• "medical bills piling at her door"
• "(health insurance company) ... policy had been canceled"
  
• "unable to work at the job she loved"; "(employer) terminated her employment"
  
• "disability expired the same week she lost her job"
  
• "more than $20,000 in bills"

Isn't it good enough to remember that citizens of other countries are more satisfied with their health care system than we are with ours, often simply because they know that people get care? -- See "World's Best Medical Care?" PNHP 8-20-07 here.

My family of four lived in Canada for over four years. After several years of having been back in the United States, I started asking Canadians what they think of the health care there. The first answer I received was very positive and was based solely on the fact that Canadians care for one another. To give you another example of an answer, the last reply that I received from a Canadian was only one word: wonderful. But let's not focus on individual answers, just refer to the previous paragraph.

Taking Care of Single Mom with Triplets

I could hardly believe my ears when a woman in Michigan told me that she's a single mother with triplets. I immediately wondered if there was anything that I could do to help her if she needed specific help, especially since I love children.

She said she had heard that the U.S. is the ONLY country in the world without health care for all of its citizens. I emphasized to her that the fact has not sunk fully into the minds of U.S. citizens, trying to indicate what a huge injustice it is to the vast majority of us.

So, shortly after the brief chat, I thought once again that WE the citizens of this great country of ours, the United States of America, can help take care of this single mother with triplets ---- and everyone else. "All" we have to do is implement a non-profit national health insurance, such as the extremely efficient single-payer option. All we have to do is demonstrate that we care.

But we must take action
---- www.healthcareforallNOW.org.

Disease in the Belt-Way

One of the times in 2007 that I was in Washington D.C. I learned this: some people in the Washington D.C. area apparently refer to D.C. and the surrounding area as the "Beltway"

There is a kind of a disease in that beltway. It causes most of the members of the U.S. Congress to have their vision blocked and their ears closed. It causes an endless repetition of one of these sets of words:

• "Single-payer is not politically feasible."
• This is the short version that is said the most often.
  
• "Single-payer is definitely the best solution, but I don't think it has the political will to make it happen."
• Heard face-to-face during a chat with a U.S. Senator.
  
• "If I was starting from scratch, I'd certainly want single-payer, but (speaker fills in his or words for the rest)."
• Heard directly from another U.S. Senator of another state.
  

Here is my translation of these sentences and any other similar sentences:

• A huge number of dollars are spent by health insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies in this county fighting what is good for the United States. U.S. citizens have the option of rising up with literally millions of direct contacts with the members of the U.S. Congress. One of those sets of direct contacts could be the activity of "Notes and Votes" pouring two to four thousand personally composed letters into the offices four times per year, growing each time. But, until something massive like that happens, there will continue to be zero support in the U.S. Senate and less than one-fourth support in the U.S. House. Why? Because there are many more health care lobbyists than there are members of the U.S. Congress. These lobbyists have a continual impact on the minds and the activities and the actions of the U.S. Congress.

It's important to keep in mind that

• The people HAVE spoken.
• The medical horror stories HAVE been communicated in multiple ways.
• The polls HAVE been taken over and over again.
  
• The federal government's own reports and working groups have documented that the nation will benefit from non-profit, single-payer national health insurance.
• There is no excuse.
  
• The facts are known.

Based on everything written above, it is nothing short of corruption that most members of the U.S. Congress are not responding to what over half of Americans want. Today I read it described by another single-payer activist as "a flagrant betrayal of trust by our legislators (which is a definition of treason)."