CNA/NNOC Statement on the House bill on healthcare

by CNA/NNOC Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro
For Immediate Release
November 9, 2009

Of all the torrent of words that followed House passage of its version of healthcare reform legislation in early November, perhaps the most misleading were those comparing it to enactment of Social Security and Medicare.

Sadly no. Social Security and Medicare were both federal programs guaranteeing respectively pensions and health care for our nation's seniors, paid for and administered by the federal government with public oversight and public accountability.

While the House bill, and its Senate counterpart, do have several important reform components, along with many weaknesses, neither one comes close to the guarantees and the expansion of health and income security provided by Social Security or Medicare.

By contrast, if the central premise of Social Security and Medicare was a federal guarantee of health and retirement security, the main provision of the bills in Congress is a mandate requiring most Americans without health coverage to buy private insurance.

In other words, the principle beneficiary is not Americans' health, but the bottom line of the insurance industry which stands to harvest tens of billions of dollars in additional profits ordered by the federal government. Or as Rep. Eric Massa of New York put it on the eve of the House vote, "at the highest level, this bill will enshrine in law the monopolistic powers of the private health insurance industry, period."

Healthcare-NOW! GA 2nd Strategy Meeting: Wed, Nov 18 - 5pm at AFSC

We will be having the second part of our Strategy Session this Wed Nov 18 at 5pm at the American Friends Services Committee in Decatur at at 189 Sams St. Decatur, GA 30030.

We will be continuing our discussion on strategy by brainstorming which groups we can expect to become allies for our campaign. Also we will discuss tactics we will use to educate people about single-payer healthcare to build a base of organizers and allies and tactics to exert power over those who can enact a single-payer health system. 

So we ask everyone to come with a list of:
1. potential allies for our Single-Payer Campaign
2. tactics to conduct popular education to build a movement and tactics to exert our power to enact reform

Patients Not Profits Protest - Tuesday, Nov 17th - Cancelled

The Patients Not Profits Protest is canceled for Tuesday, November 17th.  Look back here for more upcoming events.

Healthcare NOW GA Photo Sharing now on Flickr.com

We've set up a flickr group for any Healthcare-NOW Georgia member to share their photos and videos of our events with the group and on our website. 

Go to http://www.flickr.com/groups/healthcarenowga/ and join this Flickr group.  You can then add your pictures to our flickr site and this should automatically update the photos section of our site.

Patients Not Profits - Protest & Press Conference Nov 4th 10AM

Patients Not Profits - Protest & Press Conference
Healthcare-NOW! Georgia: Mobilizing for Healthcare Atlanta Style 

Wednesday, Nov 4th 10 AM 
At BCBS GA Headquarters - 3350 Peachtree Road, NE Atlanta, GA 30326 
Next to the Buckhead MARTA Station/N-7 Red Line (Map/Directions) 

Email healthcarenowga@yahoo.com if you have any questions about the event.

Click here for the event on Facebook 

Health insurance companies are subverting democracy and sabotaging health care reform, a citizens health care group will charge at a PRESS CONFERENCE at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, Nov. 4 in front of Blue Cross/Blue Shield’s Buckhead office, 3350 Peachtree Road, NE. 

“The insurance companies use our own premiums to lobby against us,” said Margie Rece of Decatur, a retired nurse and coordinator of HealthcareNow-GA. “This year alone, insurance companies and other vested health care interests have spent $263 million to oppose any reform which would threaten their obscene profits and power. 

“Unfortunately, they have bought enough members of Congress to kill for now the most logical, cost-effective type of universal health care, Medicare for All, and substitute instead a system which transfers hundreds of billions more taxpayer dollars to the insurance giants.” 

A recent Harvard study concluded that 45,000 Americans died last year because they could not get health insurance, Rece noted. “These companies hold the power of life or death over most Americans. That’s why we call them death panels.” 

After the press conference, the group will attempt to deliver a letter to BC/BS president Monye Connolly. They will demand that BC/BS use its policyholders’ premiums on health care, not lobbying; and stop denying coverage for “pre-existing conditions,” a death sentence for many. 

“The half-hearted reforms dictated by the insurance companies will never solve our health care crises,” Rece said. “We will continue our work until all Americans are automatically covered by Expanded and Improved Medicare from birth to death, with no co-pays, deductibles or lifetime maximums. Everybody in, nobody out!”