| The Campaign for a National Health Program NOW (cnhpNOW) is calling for
Citizen/Congressional Hearings in local districts nationwide to propose solutions to the national health care crisis. Representative John Conyers, (D, MI), Chair of the 46 member Congrssional Universal Health Care Task Force is supporting these hearings and will work to encourage other Members to attend.
HEALTH CARING ACROSS THE COUNTRY
What you can do NOW!
- WRITE TO CONGRESS! Click Here
- MAKE A DONATION!. We can't do this by ourselves. Click Here
- Order Materials that are here on our website or download them and have them printed. Add your name and phone number to them. 1-800-453-1305
- Make copies of the petition and get your neighbors to sign it. Mail to us and we will carry them en masse to Washington, D.C. And ask your neighbors to go to our website www.cnhpnow.org ...They can download copies for themselves, send to their neighbors and friends -to send...Together, we can do the greatest chain letter in history.
- Go Shopping for Signatures-Tabling in your community - malls, shopping centers, parks, demonstrations, farmer's markets, places where people congregate.
- Take a delegation to meet with your member of Congress when he or she is home in your district. Download and use "Getting Congress to Take Action." from this site.
- Take flyers and bookmarks to sports clubs and houses of worship, local restaurants, bookstores, cleaners, libraries, banks, pharmacies, bulletin boards, laundry rooms, farmer's markets, shop windows, everywhere Your doctor's office and the district offices of your member of Congress are excellent places to spread the word.
- Run a mini-film festival, a bake sale or a pot-luck dinner and invite a speaker to talk about the current health care crisis and the solutions in H.R. 676. Invite your member of Congress too. Call for a speaker from the Physicians for a National Health Program..
- Use the Draft Speech on our Resource Page, change it to fit your meeting.
- PASS A RESOLUTION IN SUPPORT OF H.R. 676 in your city or state.
- CALL US TO VOLUNTEER now! 1-800-453-1305
Resources
Here are some howtos, articles and other materials to help you "Take Action"
GETTING CONGRESS TO TAKE ACTION: HOW TO DO IT
You want your member of Congress to support HR 676, the U.S. National Health Insurance Act. Here's how to do it. First, check to see if your member is already signed onto the bill. CALL(202) 224-3121 or just call your Congressperson's District office in your community. If you don't know who your member is, call the League of Women Voters or see www.congress.merge on the web.
I. IF YOUR MEMBER IS ALREADY SIGNED ONTO THE BILL:
If your member is already signed onto HR 676, write a short thank you note and urge him or her to recruit colleagues in Congress to become co-sponsors. You can send the letter on our website or at Congress.merge. Also send a Letter to the Editor of your local newspaper. Thank your Representative for supporting the bill. Members appreciate public praise for what they have done.
II. IF YOUR MEMBER IS NOT SIGNED ONTO THE BILL:
a. Call your member of congress at the above number to urge him or her to co-sponsor the National Health Insurance Act, HR 676, sponsored by John Conyers.
b. Take others with you to a meeting with your member. Take a delegation representing several sectors, i.e. a doctor, a clergy person, a labor leader, a student, a senior citizen, a business leader.
c. Call in advance to set the appointment.
d. Rehearse the meeting if possible, even if it is just to review the agenda together the hour before the meeting. You should plan to do your presentation in less than 20 minutes, including a few minutes for the Congress member to respond. You can have some back-up material in case there are points that you have missed. You should be prepared for a short meeting.
e. Who will host the meeting? It may be you since you have the passion and concern to pursue this issue. You will open the conversation with the Representative or his/her aide - and all others in your party will have defined speaking roles-- no more than two minutes.
e. After the presentation ASK DIRECTLY IF THEY WILL CO-SPONSOR THE BILL. They may need time to read it, so set up a specific staffer with whom you can interact. Be sure to get their contact information AND follow up.
f. FOLLOW-UP IS THE KEY TO SUCCESS. You must follow up promptly and cheerfully. Be persistent at each task and thank them for every bit of effort they invest in helping you, even just reading the bill.
III. BUILD STRONG COMMUNITY SUPPORT
When you have meetings in your community, take along lots of different types of paper and stationery and ask people to write a short hand-written note to their member of Congress about the issue. Give people a few written points that they can include in their letter, but urge people to make them as personal as possible. PUT STAMPS ON THEM AND MAIL THEM YOURSELF.
Attend local town hall meetings that your Representative holds. Raise the subject of national health insurance. Bring along friends to join in thanking the member publicly or calling on him/her to act. Bring signs and bookmarks and copies of petitions. Rally the whole town meeting to our cause.
The U.S. Congress is a reactive body, and when the people of the United States demand a national health care system, we will get it! Congress will only respond when we insist! Thanks to www.globalrenaissancealliance.org for parts of this guide.
Draft of a Speech to MoveON
by Marilyn Clement
Executive Director, CNHP NOW!
Health Care is being called "The Big Enchilada" this year as people all over the country are demanding that all political candidates must respond to this issue... now.
The message of The Campaign for a National Health Program NOW is that we can indeed get a wonderful guaranteed comprehensive national health care system if we build the movement for it and are prepared to put it on the table seriously in January 2005.
Close your eyes and visualize it:
Everybody in the country of every age and every race and every state of health or illness would be able to access all of the health care they need - being able to choose their own doctors and hospitals - and paying less money than they are paying now. That is the bill that has been introduced in Congress, HR 676.
Very importantly, everybody in the country would have choice of doctors and health care facilities, and the doctors would no long have to seek permission from health care bureaucrats to provide the treatments, hospitalizations, and drugs their patients need.
How would we pay for it? All but the top 5% of income people would be paying less than they are now. A lot less! You've just lost your job? ... You have health care.
You've just contracted some terrible disease or illness? You have all the health care you need - chemo, surgery, anti retroviral drugs, dialysis, heart transplants, injections for your kids, contraceptives, prescription drugs for everybody, mental health care, drug treatment, long-term care for your mother ....and for all of us who are baby-boomers ... all for less than we are now spending.
We can pay for it with the money we are spending now! But instead of paying for private profits and excess administrative costs ... you should know that there are more administrators than doctors now in the health care system - administrators who spend their time handling and DENYING claims - Instead of paying them one/third of our health care billions, we would be paying for health care for everybody.
Instead of excess administration, bureacracy and profits, we would be paying for health care for everybody. Everybody in; nobody out!
You are in business and you want your workers to have health care. This is the bill for you. You are a union, and you want to negotiate for decent pay and working conditions? You no longer have to spend all of your time trying to retain health care for your members. They are covered! You run a non-profit organization? You can now provide more services and more action for your dollars without having to pay excessive costs for health care!
In addition, the bill would pay for the transition period from insurance companies and HMO's ...providing for severance pay and retraining for their workers and some remuneration.
Now open your eyes and think about the number 1600. What does that remind you of? ... 1600 what? ... 1600 Pennsylvania?... Right and Wrong! Think of the 1600 insurance companies and HMO's we are now paying to process claims. They provide no health care. They can be replaced by a system that provides health care for all.
So we have a nexus here - 1600 Pennsylvania and 1600 insurance companies!
How can we win this? How can we replace this system that rewards bureaucracy and profits to the detriment of health care?
We have to build and sustain a movement that is even bigger than the civil rights movement. This movement has to say to our elected officials that we won't wait any more. Our national budget cannot sustain this horrible system of inadequacy and emergency care being used for health care that could be treated with a normal health care system. We can't afford to spend our diminishing dollars on massive profits rather than health care. We can't afford to have jobs transferred out of the country because of health care costs.
But we must get ready for a preemptive strike on the insurance companies and prescription drug corporations and the HMO's.... As well as the thousands of lobbyists they employ! They will come after us with a vengeance. They face the loss of hundreds of billions of dollars in profits every year if we win this.
We need a Move On type strategy to deal with the arguments they will try to infuse into the debate. And we need to make the connections clear - the nexus between them and the politicians in bed with them. If they want our votes, they have to get out of bed with these guys and support health care as a human right! We are sick and tired of being sick and tired...That's what Ms. Fannie Lou Hamer said to the Democratic Convention in 1964... and we're sick and tired of being rated number 37 by the World Health Organization. We intend to get the health care we deserve.
Our people must get prepared to do more than vote. They have to let the candidates know that we are going to vote on this issue and that we expect commitments from them.
We have to organize in our own communities. Rallies of the uninsured and almost-uninsured - that's most of us...Invite the doctors from the Physicians for a National Health Program to speak - they are in every state...Hold health care film festivals and reach people who have been unreachable before...Put ads in our local newspapers, newsletters, and email letters...city and state resolutions to Congress...
Calling the 800 number to say, "Don't ask me to vote for you until you support guaranteed national health care for all!" "We are only one pink slip away from being uninsured. This could be your pink slip too." Our 800 number (800-453-1305) is designed to reach people who are not on the internet...
Circulate our petition...meet with business people to help them understand the plan...link with prescription drug reform activists...use the internet to spread the word and support the campaign! And get out the vote! Register everybody to vote for change and then ...get ready to redouble our work AFTER THE ELECTION! January 2005 will be a time to party and a time to roll up our sleeves to finally get the national health care we deserve.
Our motto, coined by Dr. Quentin Young is "Everybody in; nobody out!" It couldn't be more clear. Everybody in; NOBODY out!"
Rally/Conference Information
For information on and photos from our August 31 conference, please click here.
Sample City Resolution
A sample of a resolution that can be presented to a City or Town Council.
Resolution on HR 676 - Universal Single Payer Healthcare
The health and healthcare of all our people are vital to our city and crucial to its future, yet we face a healthcare crisis as insurance premiums rise at an unsustainable rate. Coverage is shrinking, as more employers cap their contributions to health insurance, and workers find they cannot pay their rapidly growing share. The burden on employers is too great and increasing. The result is disastrous for workers and their families.
The elderly and many others cannot afford their life-sustaining drugs. Those who are unemployed lose the limited coverage they had. Thousands in our city have joined the ranks of the 44 million nationally who have no health insurance at all. Many others face a loss in services as state funds are cut.
While we in the United States spend approximately twice as much of our gross domestic product as other developed nations on health care. we remain the only industrialized nation without universal coverage. The U.S. health system continues to treat health care as a commodity distributed according to the ability to pay, rather than as a social service to be distributed according to human need. Our problem worsens each year as gradual solutions have failed to make a dent in the problem.
Economic necessity and moral conscience compel us to seek a better way. We can use what we currently spend on healthcare, expand coverage to everyone, and improve care to those covered. Congressman John Conyers, Jr., D-Michigan (joined by more than 40 co-signers) has introduced HR 676, the United States National Health Insurance Act, also called Expanded and Improved Medicare for All. This single-payer health care program proposes an effective mechanism for controlling skyrocketing costs while covering all uninsured Americans and expanding secure quality care for those currently covered.
This is American-style healthcare with full choice of doctors and treatments rather than administrator-mandated limitations. It frees physicians from insurance interference, and provides comprehensive prescription drug coverage to all people in the country. HR 676 would cover every person in the U.S. for all necessary medical care including prescription drugs, hospital, surgical, outpatient services, primary and preventive care, emergency services, dental, mental health, optical, home health, physical therapy, rehabilitation including substance abuse, chiropractic, and long term care.
HR 676 ends deductibles and co-pays. It would save hundreds of billions annually by eliminating the high overhead and profits of the private health insurance industry and HMOs. The transition to national health insurance would apply the savings from administration and profits to expanded and improved coverage for all.
Now, therefore, be it resolved that_____city____endorses Congressman Conyer's legislation, HR 676, "Expanded and Improved Medicare for All", and will work to educate our community on the importance of this legislation. and that copies of this resolution be sent to our two Senators in the U.S. Senate and members of the House of Representatives.
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