What would it be like never to worry about what the medical care you need would cost you?
Ann knows [2:58]:
Passed to me by one of Ann's friends.
We all need to contact our Senators and Representatives (again) and remind them we expect an affordable health care reform that covers everyone.
The Senate Finance Committee will vote on whether to include a public option -- a not-for-profit alternative to private insurance that some people could sign up for -- in its version of bill this coming Tuesday. The Congressional Budget Office and most economists who aren't working for private insurance companies believe a public option will help control health care costs by competing with wasteful for-profit practices.
Most Democratic Senators want a public option, but five members on this important committee are wafflers according to the well-informed Jane Hamsher. Republican members will try to kill the public option. Democrats outnumber Republicans on the committee 13-10, so it can pass if 3 of the Democrats vote for it. The waffling Dems are: Max Baucus-MT; Ben Nelson-NB; Kent Conrad-ND; Blanche Lincoln-AR; and Tom Carper-DE.
If you've got any of these, or Republican Olympia Snowe of Maine, no quantity of calls and emails are wasted!
Oh -- and even if this unrepresentative crew leaves out a public option, the possibility is not off the table. Other Senators and the majority of Democrats in the House can be expected to bring it back into the process.
The wafflers are in the pockets of the insurance and pharmaceutical industries. Do you think a loud hue and cry from the public will get them to include the public option? I have serious doubts, unfortunately.
ReplyDeleteIt is sickening (pun intended) that every other industrialized country has universal health care. We are rapidly becoming a backward nation of no nothings.