Your money or your life!

Dennis Kucinich peers into a crystal ball and predicts the future --

The Private Mandate Sausage Machine

While the political process in Washington suffers through its grotesque pantomime on health care, let us prepare our neighborhoods, our communities, our states for the eventual triumph of single payer health care. Please sign the petition for a single payer system. Download, print and circulate the petition among friends and neighbors.

Dear Friends,

It is said one should not ask how sausage or laws are made. Are you concerned about a public option? Let me share with you some insight about health care legislation which may not be good for your health.

A lesson in politics. The Kucinich Prediction: Here's what's going to happen ...

1. House will make a big deal about keeping/putting a public option in HR3200 because it competes with insurance companies and will keep insurance rates low.
2. The White House will refer to the President's speech last week where he spoke favorably of the public option.
3. The Senate will kill the competitive public option in favor of non-competitive "co-ops". Senate leaders like Kent Conrad have said the votes to pass a public option were never there in the Senate.
4. The bill will come to a House-Senate Conference Committee without the public option.
5. House Democrats will be told to support the conference report on the legislation to support the President.
6. The bill will pass, not with a "public option" but with a private mandate requiring 30 million uninsured to buy private health insurance (if one doesn't already have it). If you are broke, you may get a subsidy. If you are not broke, you will get a fine if you do not purchase insurance.

This legislative sausage will be celebrated as a new breakthrough and will be packaged as health insurance reform. However, the bill may require a Surgeon General's warning label: Your Money or Your Life!

The bill that Congress passes may pale in comparison to the bill that millions of Americans will get every month/year for having or not having private health insurance.

It will take four years for the new legislation to go into effect. During that time we are going to build a constituency of millions in support of real health care, a constituency which will be recognized and a cause which is right and just: Health Care as a Civil Right.

Join our efforts. Sign the petition. Contribute. Insure a democratic future.

Thank you.

Here's hoping that last part proves to be true -- During that time we are going to build a constituency of millions in support of real health care, a constituency which will be recognized and a cause which is right and just: Health Care as a Civil Right. Do what you can to help that along.

from the inbox...

Health Care or Insurance Care? It's Time to Respond!

Dear Friends,

The health care decision-making process in Washington is horribly tainted by the campaign contributions of insurance and pharmaceutical interests. Under the pay-to-play system health care becomes insurance care, the public option shrinks to irrelevance, the choice we are left: What kind of private, for-profit insurance do you want? This is not acceptable. We must respond now, and not settle for a plan which subsidizes insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies and sets the stage for the privatization of Medicare. We want Health Care for all the people, Medicare for All, which is exactly what the bill John Conyers and I wrote, HR 676, accomplishes. And the only way we will achieve it is to organize and take action in our communities to effect real change at a state and national level. Let us initiate immediately an action plan to intervene and provide health care for all:

1. On-line petition. Please contact your lists, your family and friends. Please sign the petition for a single payer system. I will deliver the petitions directly to your Congressperson.



2. Petition to download, print and circulate among friends and neighbors - including an instruction sheet.



3. A National Health Care for All Conference Call from Washington, DC, at 10 pm EDT, Thursday, September 10th at 1-800-230-1096. Join us, so that we can discuss our new beginning and ways in which we can all help. Pre-registration is necessary in order to reserve sufficient phone lines. Please RSVP. [NB: I don't seem to be able to make the link work directly from the post but it looks like you should send an email to rsvp@kucinich.us with Health Care For All Teleconference in the subject line.] When you call in and the operator asks, "what conference call?" tell the operator, "Health Care for All."



4. Health Care Meet-Ups. Coming Thursday September 10 2009.



5. Tell A Friend. Every email forwarded will make a difference. [NB: I can't make this link work from the post either, so you can just forward this post for lack of a better solution.]

I need your help to initiate this action. If you believe, as I do, that we can and must begin a new long-term state-by-state grassroots effort to create a single-payer, not-for-profit health care system, please contribute now at Kucinich.us


Thank you.

Sincerely.

100 years later the evil banks and corporations have fallen

but Cleveland's municipally-owned electric company is still going strong.

You can thank Dennis Kucinich for that.

Kucinich explains his endorsement of Obama

Dear Supporter,

For the record:

1. New Hampshire is the first state where we are aggressively campaigning. Due to the Party lockout in Iowa, we chose to focus on New Hampshire.
2. I am the only person running for President who voted against the war, against funding the war 100% of the time, against the Patriot Act, and who stands for a universal single-payer not-for-profit healthcare system. Nevertheless I was excluded from Saturday night's ABC Presidential debate, or four tone monologue as it was.
3. In answer to your questions about why I didn't support former Senator John Edwards on the second ballot in Iowa: I have serious concerns about his connections to a Wall Street hedge fund, Fortress Investment Group. While attacking others for accepting campaign money from Washington lobbyists, he is up to his ears in money from Wall Street special interests.

He made half a million dollars in a single year for attending a few meetings for Fortress and has invested a substantial part of his own personal wealth in the hedge fund whose portfolios are responsible for sub-prime predatory lending practices, Medicare privatization, and an entire range of corporate sharp dealings that are driving the middle class into poverty.

While I indicated Senator Obama as a preferred second choice in Iowa, Progressives have fundamental disagreements with him and all of the other Presidential candidates on most of their major positions on the issues.

We must have the courage of our convictions to fully support and vote for what it is we really want. For once, we must realize our power, stop playing tactical games, and vote as a bloc - which, as you know, is what the religious right does and why they often win.

We Progressives are in the majority in this election. We will win only when we refuse to compromise and vote with integrity.

Dennis Kucinich

What he said

Paul Krugman dissects Barack Obama's past and present attempts at bringing about health care reform. Obama tried to get universal health care legislation passed in Illinois several years ago, and was beaten up over it by the insurance companies [surprise, surprise], hence his conciliatory stance towards the industry now.

That's a good piece of history to know about, but this paragraph from Krugman's blog post sums it up.

The point is that if national health reform is going to happen, it will be as the result of a no-holds-barred fight of an entirely different order from what Obama saw in Illinois. The president’s role will have to be far more confrontational, involve far more twisting of arms and rallying of the public against the special interests, than Obama’s role as a state legislator in the Illinois case. And it will take place against a backdrop of fierce attacks not just from the industry but from Republicans who fear, rightly, that any kind of reform will move the country in a more liberal direction.

Dennis Kucinich is the candidate whose ideals come the closest to mine, but I think John Edwards is the candidate most likely to win this fight.

Dennis Kucinich will be appearing on Comedy Central's 'The Colbert Report'

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Dennis Kucinich on universal health care

Dennis Kucinich interview on PBS

12 hours left!

From my e-mail inbox:

Dear [hipparchia],

This is it! There are twelve hours left, and we need your contribution to reach our final goal this weekend of 300,000 dollars.

Your help has already brought us to 270,000 dollars and now is the time we need you to propel us through that last 30,000 dollars.

If 300 people contribute 100 dollars, then we can meet our goal.

The FEC (Federal Election Commission) has set its official deadline for third quarter filings at midnight tonight, so we have twelve hours to record our contributions.

Please, give our campaign one last push with your $100 contribution, or any amount you can provide.

Thanks for all of your support,
Dennis Kucinich

If you want to help to help with that last $30,000 uou can donate using the link on the front page of his website or call toll free: 1-877-413-3664.

Are You Outraged Yet?

from the e-mail inbox [excerpts]:

AARP will profit over
4.4 Billion Dollars while
America's Seniors Suffer!

Dear [hipparchia],

On September 21st, the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) sponsored a Presidential forum in Iowa focused on health care reform.

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My plan would eliminate the obscene profit of 4.4 billion dollars AARP alone stands to gain over the next 7 years at the expense of the senior citizens they claim to represent.

AARP's strategic partnership with healthcare giants United Health Care and Aetna are embraced by Senators Clinton, Obama, and former Senator Edwards who are pushing plans to keep the for-profit private insurers in business and in control of your life!

This is an outrage and you should be outraged!

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The health care plans of the invited candidates preserve and promote the interests of for-profit insurance and pharmaceutical companies at the expense of tens of millions of everyday Americans while the corporate media keeps America drugged with misinformation so you can't make an informed decision.

I have the prescription for a
better healthcare system for America.

Under my plan, HR 676, every American would be covered! No premiums, no deductibles, and no co-payments. No one would be denied coverage and no one will be denied services and you choose your own physicians. It's the healthcare plan America deserves and it's the only plan that reduces expenses and puts your money back in your pocket. Just think for a moment what you could you do with the money that you are now paying in deductibles or other health expenses ... save for retirement … save for education … save for a vacation. The choice really is yours! It's a healthy windfall for the people ... not the corporations.

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Join me in bringing a healthy future for all of us. Together we can let the special interests and the other presidential candidates know that we will not be silenced and will not accept business as usual.

Make a contribution today! Help me be your voice and reach our fundraising goal by September 30th.

It's your America,
Dennis Kucinich