This weekend, the Progressive Democrats of America's "Healthcare, Not Warfare" tour came to town, complete with the California Nurse's Association (featured in the Michael Moore film, "SiCKO") and a special visit from Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), sponsor of H.R. 676, the universal health care for all Americans bill. First stop was Obama HQ's in downtown Kent, and a small group of us health care advocates had a chance to meet with Congressman Conyers to discuss our concerns and talk about where things are going from here. It was quite an honor to meet such a legendary figure. Congressman Conyers has served 22 terms in Congress, and is one of the senior, if not
the senior member of the House of Representatives. At age 79, he's still full of passion and energy and is ready to keep up the fight for ordinary people and their concerns. On Sunday morning, we met with the national leadership of the Progressive Democrats of America over breakfast at Mike's Place restaurant, a colorful local establishment in Kent, to talk strategy for winning more progressive seats in both Houses of Congress as well as how to put Barack Obama over the top in Ohio. We were told not to get too confident, as McCain has been, in recent days, tightening the race and now it's down to a dead heat here in Ohio to where either one could easily win this state. So we were encouraged to get out the vote and talk to undecided friends, family, co-workers and anyone else we knew sitting the fence. Then we adjourned to the Cuyahoga Falls Natatorium in nearby Cuyahoga Falls, for a town hall forum on health care. Well, there wasn't much of a turnout, but we had yet another visit from the legendary Congressman Conyers
and had a small, intimate meeting with him to talk more about the health care issue and H.R. 676. He gave a very impassioned speech about how meeting with we few in just such a setting was more important to him than big rallies, because he had a chance to talk one on one with us and hear our voices, our stories and what we plan to do to turn things around. He called us "extended family" because we are doing the work to carry on the progressive message that he's fought for in his over 40 years in Congress. It was so neat to be able to introduce ourselves to the Congressman and to tell him what brought us to this point and why we felt so passionate about the whole health care issue to where we were willing to fight so hard for it. What was so cool was that his staff members were trying to hurry him out of the meeting to meet a plane to travel elsewhere, but he decided that he'd stay in Ohio to do more work with us to further the cause of health care, so we were blessed with having more time with Congressman Conyers than we expected. It was such an honor to meet him and to have a chance to speak to him face to face and to urge him to keep fighting the good fight in Washington to bring universal health care to all Americans.
And so, from there, we traveled to Hudson to the VFW Hall to attend a rally for Mike Moran, Democratic candidate for State Representative for the 42nd District. I live in the 68th District, represented by Kathleen Chandler, but I wanted to badger this Moran fellow to support universal health care for all Ohioans if he's elected to represent his district. I also wanted to meet the night's special guests, Senator Sherrod Brown from Ohio, retired Senator John Glenn, legend and astronaut, and Governor Ted Strickland. Naturally, I badgered all of these political figures about the health care crisis that our country faces and how important it is to support single payer, universal health care. I mentioned that it would make American businesses more competitive in the world markets because they would no longer have to be concerned about paying health care premiums for their active and retired employees, thus saving American businesses billions of dollars and quite possibly saving millions of American jobs from being shipped overseas. Well, I just hope that all of these important people listened to me. I know that the incremental approach is the one currently favored instead of going to a single payer system, and we were told by Congressman Conyers that we have to keep the heat on our legislators to sign on as endorsers of H.R. 676. Currently there are 91 co-signatories to this bill in the House of Representatives, which isn't bad, given that there are still a lot of people who don't understand what it is all about. One hears whispers of "socialism!", as if somehow that is a bad thing, but what is the massive government bailout of the failing banks but socialism? What is the GI Bill, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, but socialism? So we've already got socialistic programs in place, so what are people so darned afraid of, anyhow? I don't know as we'll have universal health care in my lifetime, but all I can do is to keep being an activist for change and keep talking to those with the power to make that change. This weekend, I had more than my chance to speak to some pretty powerful people, and I am delighted at having had the privilege to meet such amazing people who listened to my story and who seem to want to help. It's going to take time, but I think that we can make the changes that so many Americans are calling for in our spreading health care crisis. I'm only one voice, but there are so many others out there who have it far worse than me, including "Eileen The Poor Person", a lovely woman I met at the Mike Moran rally who lost her job, and now, as a result, not only has no health care, but is about to lose her home to foreclosure as well. One crisis can cause a cascading effect like that, and it's not right and it's not fair and it must change. Hopefully in eight short days, that change will come about. Let's keep our fingers crossed that all the stars will align the right way to make it happen!
This weekend, the Progressive Democrats of America's "Healthcare, Not Warfare" tour came to town, complete with the California Nurse's Association (featured in the Michael Moore film, "SiCKO") and a special visit from Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), sponsor of H.R. 676, the universal health care for all Americans bill. First stop was Obama HQ's in downtown Kent, and a small group of us health care advocates had a chance to meet with Congressman Conyers to discuss our concerns and talk about where things are going from here. It was quite an honor to meet such a legendary figure. Congressman Conyers has served 22 terms in Congress, and is one of the senior, if not the senior member of the House of Representatives. At age 79, he's still full of passion and energy and is ready to keep up the fight for ordinary people and their concerns. On Sunday morning, we met with the national leadership of the Progressive Democrats of America over breakfast at Mike's Place restaurant, a colorful local establishment in Kent, to talk strategy for winning more progressive seats in both Houses of Congress as well as how to put Barack Obama over the top in Ohio. We were told not to get too confident, as McCain has been, in recent days, tightening the race and now it's down to a dead heat here in Ohio to where either one could easily win this state. So we were encouraged to get out the vote and talk to undecided friends, family, co-workers and anyone else we knew sitting the fence. Then we adjourned to the Cuyahoga Falls Natatorium in nearby Cuyahoga Falls, for a town hall forum on health care. Well, there wasn't much of a turnout, but we had yet another visit from the legendary Congressman Conyers
and had a small, intimate meeting with him to talk more about the health care issue and H.R. 676. He gave a very impassioned speech about how meeting with we few in just such a setting was more important to him than big rallies, because he had a chance to talk one on one with us and hear our voices, our stories and what we plan to do to turn things around. He called us "extended family" because we are doing the work to carry on the progressive message that he's fought for in his over 40 years in Congress. It was so neat to be able to introduce ourselves to the Congressman and to tell him what brought us to this point and why we felt so passionate about the whole health care issue to where we were willing to fight so hard for it. What was so cool was that his staff members were trying to hurry him out of the meeting to meet a plane to travel elsewhere, but he decided that he'd stay in Ohio to do more work with us to further the cause of health care, so we were blessed with having more time with Congressman Conyers than we expected. It was such an honor to meet him and to have a chance to speak to him face to face and to urge him to keep fighting the good fight in Washington to bring universal health care to all Americans.
And so, from there, we traveled to Hudson to the VFW Hall to attend a rally for Mike Moran, Democratic candidate for State Representative for the 42nd District. I live in the 68th District, represented by Kathleen Chandler, but I wanted to badger this Moran fellow to support universal health care for all Ohioans if he's elected to represent his district. I also wanted to meet the night's special guests, Senator Sherrod Brown from Ohio, retired Senator John Glenn, legend and astronaut, and Governor Ted Strickland. Naturally, I badgered all of these political figures about the health care crisis that our country faces and how important it is to support single payer, universal health care. I mentioned that it would make American businesses more competitive in the world markets because they would no longer have to be concerned about paying health care premiums for their active and retired employees, thus saving American businesses billions of dollars and quite possibly saving millions of American jobs from being shipped overseas. Well, I just hope that all of these important people listened to me. I know that the incremental approach is the one currently favored instead of going to a single payer system, and we were told by Congressman Conyers that we have to keep the heat on our legislators to sign on as endorsers of H.R. 676. Currently there are 91 co-signatories to this bill in the House of Representatives, which isn't bad, given that there are still a lot of people who don't understand what it is all about. One hears whispers of "socialism!", as if somehow that is a bad thing, but what is the massive government bailout of the failing banks but socialism? What is the GI Bill, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, but socialism? So we've already got socialistic programs in place, so what are people so darned afraid of, anyhow? I don't know as we'll have universal health care in my lifetime, but all I can do is to keep being an activist for change and keep talking to those with the power to make that change. This weekend, I had more than my chance to speak to some pretty powerful people, and I am delighted at having had the privilege to meet such amazing people who listened to my story and who seem to want to help. It's going to take time, but I think that we can make the changes that so many Americans are calling for in our spreading health care crisis. I'm only one voice, but there are so many others out there who have it far worse than me, including "Eileen The Poor Person", a lovely woman I met at the Mike Moran rally who lost her job, and now, as a result, not only has no health care, but is about to lose her home to foreclosure as well. One crisis can cause a cascading effect like that, and it's not right and it's not fair and it must change. Hopefully in eight short days, that change will come about. Let's keep our fingers crossed that all the stars will align the right way to make it happen! 
2 comments:
Wonderful post and I envy you your Ohio access. I'm still in a state of shock that McCain and Obama have bothered to campaign in Indiana - tis indeed a funny season.
It will be interesting to see what the economic disaster does to health care in the short term - people without health insurance take longer to seek care, so they are sicker when it happens... will this mean more ER docs and fewer GPs?
Sadly, right now in America there is a severe shortage of doctors, so if we do end up with universal health care, there will be a tremendous burden on the existing doctors we have, so there will need to be much more emphasis and encouragement toward medicine as a career field and the ability to make it more affordable for those seeking to become doctors, nurses and other health care professionals.
As our generation ages, we will need much, much more medical care, and with as many Baby Boomers out there as there are, it's going to greatly strain the health care system unless we act now to encourage more people to seek to become medical professionals and enable them to do so afforably. Part of what has caused such a steep rise in health care costs is the outrageous cost of malpractice insurance. So the problem is multi-faceted in that there also needs to be some kind of tort reform as well in the legal system to make frivolous lawsuits harder to file.
It's a huge problem, and coming up with an easy solution isn't going to be possible. The fact is, that many things will have to be fixed before the cost of health care comes down to anything resembling reasonable.
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