We have a PA House Single Payer Bill
June 28, 2007
We have a PA House Single Payer Bill, HR 1660. Thank you, Rep. Kathy Mandarino and the 28 other co sponsors of this groundbreaking legislation.
Please call your state representative and ask him/her to support this bill.
Go See Sicko
June 28, 2007
Don’t miss the most important health care movie, maybe ever. If you want to help flyer at any of these theaters, here are some of the links with flyers:
www.sickocure.org
www.healthcare-now.org
www.healthcare4allpa.org
Here are the list of movie theaters showing Sicko in the area:
Bala Cynwyd, PA Clearview Bala Theatre
Bensalem, PA AMC Neshaminy 24
Cherry Hill, NJ LCE Cherry Hill 24
Doylestown, PA Regal Barn Plaza 14
Jenkintown, PA Hiway
King of Prussia, PA UA KingOfPrussia Stadium 15 & IMAX
Langhorne, PA Regal Oxford Valley 14
Newtown Square, PA Regal Edgmont Square 10
Oaks, PA Regal Marketplace 24
Philadelphia, PA Ritz East
Plymouth Meeting, PA AMC Plymouth Meeting Cinema 12
Warrington, PA Regal Warrington Crossing 22
Sicko Town Meeting
June 24, 2007
On Tuesday, July 10, 2007 at 7 PM, there will be a Town Meeting at the Penn Newman Center, 3720 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia to discuss Sicko, single payer health care, and what WE can do to help advance national health insurance in America. Everyone is invited. Donations to support this effort would be appreciated.
Here are some web sites to read more about helping in these efforts:
HR 676 – the US National Health Insurance Act of 2007
http://www.sickocure.org
http://www.healthcare-now.org
http://www.pnhp.org
SB 300 – the Pennsylvania Family and Business Health Security Act (state single payer plan)
http://www.helpfundpa.org
Single payer Go See Sicko
June 23, 2007
There was a sneak preview of Michael Moore’s documentary about the crisis in American healthcare at the Ritz East this past Saturday. It will return June 29tth to three Philadelphia theaters—the Ritz East, the Bala, and the Bridge. Moore’s film, I have heard, is heart-breaking, convincing, and very funny (the last is no surprise, from the director of Farenheit 9/11, whatever you thought of its politics). Moore contends that the answer to unaffordable premiums, insurance companies that try to elude giving you the benefits you have paid for, poor quality care, is an state-run not-for-profit healthcare system. He wants a national plan that is supported by taxes, which is what every other advanced country in the world has. And so it is indeed news that the appearance of “Sicko” coincides with groundbreaking activity in the Pennsylvania state house on behalf of the Family & Business Health Care Security Act.
Representative Kathy Mandarino, who recently agreed to be the Prime Sponsor of this bill in the House, last week circulated a Memo seeking co-sponsors (endorsement) for it. Here in our own state we could have the kind of healthcare system—often tagged “Medicare for All”—that Moore is calling for, which would make us a model for the nation. If we get single payer health insurance here, the national bill that has been stalled in Congress (despite numerous endorsements) since 2005, a bill subtitled “Medicare for All” (HR 686), might find itself infused with new life. Both bills offer comprehensive benefits: beyond “medical” care, they offer dental, mental health, vision, chiropractic, hospice, longterm, and other kinds of health services.
Single payer simply means that the money for the health system comes out of a single tax-supported fund. Not all government-run systems around the world are exactly like that, but one of the things that unites them is that profit is NOT their objective. Yet we are not talking about anything resembling what people associate with “socialized medicine.” With the kind of health system the Pennsylvania Family and Business Healthcare Security Act and HR 676 would provide, you could go to any doctor or hospital you wanted. and there would actually be less bureaucracy than there is now. The involvement of profit-making insurance companies that act as middlemen adds costly layers of paperwork (such expenses are about 24% of the American healthcare budget) while Medicare’s overhead is only 4%. Friends in France (widely considered the nation that has the best health system) tell me they have personal relationships with their doctors, who do not have money on their minds while treating them.
Americans pay about twice as much as people in other countries for health care, and yet are less healthy. Of course the 47 million without insurance, are less healthy: less likely to have early diagnoses for disease, less likely to get preventative care. But Americans in general have a higher infant and maternal mortality rate and have a 25 % greater chance of dying early. Moore’s film, focuses of those who DO have insurance. Because health insurance in the US is an industry with profit as its goal, it tries to get out of spending money, and thus “Sicko” tells horrifying stories. One is about a woman who was refused payment for an MRI on the grounds that it was unnecessary and then found out, after having the test in Japan, that she had a brain tumor.
Like Michael Moore I believe that health insurance, unlike car insurance, should have nothing to do with profit: access to health care is a fundamental right in a democracy. All Americans should have high-quality health care: rich people should not have better health care and hence better health than poor people! We do not find this to be an obvious truth because we have been brainwashed by the medical-insurance and pharmaceutical industries which spend tremendous amounts of money to keep the truth from us, often by paying lobbyists to keep the media silent.
Thus most of us know about Rendell’s Prescription for Pennsylvania, legislation that would not offer comprehensive benefits and would not come close to covering everybody. Yet few of us even know that the Healthcare Security Act is in the state legislature (and HR 676 in Congress). But the Governor knows: At a forum in Lancaster in early April he conceded that a single-payer model of healthcare for Pennsylvanians might be better, and he acknowledged that the state’s powerful health insurance lobbies was a “hurdle.” He has promised not to veto a single payer bill if it gets through the legislature, so let’s give him a chance to keep his promise. Call or e-mail your Pennsylvania House member right after reading this, and demand he or she endorse the bill—you can find the right phone number or e-mail by going to this website: www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/home/find.cfm And see “Sicko”!
State House single payer bill gathers cosponsors
June 21, 2007
From Chuck Pennachio, Exec Director of www.helpfundpa.org
Yes, folks, we have a House bill version of the “Family and Business Healthcare Security Act” on the way to introduction. Thanks to the courage and vision of Rep. Kathy Mandarino (D, Phila), her circulation memo encouraging colleagues to co-sponsor FaBHCA is making the rounds as of this morning. That means we have approximately one week to lobby the State House to get as many co-sponsors as possible on the bill before its formal introduction. So get those phone calls and e-mails off to your representatives right away!
Click on the following for resources to locate and contact those House members already committed to the “Family and Business Healthcare Security Act.” But please reach out to ALL members. Additionally, the Capitol Hill switchboard number is 717.787.2121. For name and local contact info. go to www.congress.org and to state legislators; put in your zip code.
http://www.healthcare4allpa.org/legislators.htm
Working together we are saving our economy, liberating all our citizens from healthcare insecurity, and restoring sanity to a medical delivery system that is broken. Virtually all economists now agree that the only means to achieving all of the above is through legislation like our universal single-payer bill. See you on the campaign trail!
Yours in unity,
Chuck
Sicko press event and movie premiere
June 21, 2007
The wait is over. Sicko is being released this Saturday. Here is the list. Locally, it will be at the Ritz East and the Ritz in Voohees, NJ. Next week will have a wider distribution list. Sylvia Metzler, RN, CRNP who has seen the film on a sneak preview called me excitedly to say, “you have got to see this film”. It will make you laugh, cry, cheer, and finally demand that our country get a better health care system. Don’t miss this movie. Send this to all your friends.
On June 19, the red Sicko bus came and it was filled with nurses ready to promote the movie. They came from all over, New York, Calif, Illinois, etc. Very exciting.
Join us at Sicko Press Event June 19
June 17, 2007
On Tuesday, June 19, 12 noon at the Liberty Bell, there will be a rally in suppport of Michael Moore’s amazing new movie, Sicko which has its national debut, June 29. It will be shown at the Ritz theaters, Bala, and the Bridge among other places in Philadelphia.
Locally, the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals will be welcoming the nurses from the California Nurses Association (CNA) and the National Nurses Organizing Committee (NNOC) to Philadelphia on their way to D.C. They will be promoting the national release of the riveting movie “SiCKO” and building a broad movement for genuine health care reform. “SiCKO” is a new film by Michael Moore which documents real-life health care problems; putting a face on the vast number of Americans who have trouble with their insurance or no insurance at all.
Join us for a Press Event on Tuesday, June 19th, 2007 at noon at Independence Mall (on Market Street between 5th and 6th streets) to hear speakers, including one of the movie’s stars, discuss “SiCKO” and the need for guaranteed health care for all.
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