{"id":8189,"date":"2018-03-24T11:36:39","date_gmt":"2018-03-24T18:36:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=8189"},"modified":"2018-03-24T11:36:39","modified_gmt":"2018-03-24T18:36:39","slug":"ten-million-americans-could-bring-h-r-676-into-reality-land-relief-for-anxiety-dread-and-fear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2018\/03\/24\/ten-million-americans-could-bring-h-r-676-into-reality-land-relief-for-anxiety-dread-and-fear\/","title":{"rendered":"Ten Million Americans Could Bring H.R. 676 into Reality Land\u2014Relief for Anxiety, Dread and Fear"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"field-wrapper-attribution\" class=\"field-wrapper content-container clearfix inline-fields\">\n<div class=\"field field--name-field-article-date field--type-datestamp field--label-hidden\">\n<div class=\"field__items\">\n<div class=\"field__item even\"><span class=\"pb-timestamp\"><span class=\"date-display-single\">March 23, 2018\u00a0<\/span><\/span>by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.commondreams.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Common Dreams<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"field field--name-field-subtitle field--type-text-long field--label-hidden\">\n<div class=\"field__items\">\n<div class=\"field__item even\">\n<div>\n<h4>Medicare for all is what the Pentagon does. It is what President Harry Truman wanted from Congress back in the nineteen forties. It is time.<\/h4>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"field-wrapper-authors\" class=\"field-wrapper content-container clearfix inline-fields\">\n<div class=\"grouping-prefix\">by\u00a0<span class=\"pb-byline\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.commondreams.org\/author\/ralph-nader\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Ralph Nader<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"shr_canvas2\" class=\"shareaholic-canvas shareaholic-ui shareaholic-resolved-canvas ng-scope\" data-app-id=\"6840209\" data-app-id-name=\"views_article_above_content\" data-app=\"share_buttons\" data-title=\"Ten Million Americans Could Bring H.R. 676 into Reality Land\u2014Relief for Anxiety, Dread and Fear\" data-link=\"https:\/\/www.commondreams.org\/views\/2018\/03\/23\/ten-million-americans-could-bring-hr-676-reality-land-relief-anxiety-dread-and-fear\" data-summary=\"\">\n<div class=\"ng-scope share_buttons\" translate=\"no\">\n<div class=\"shareaholic-share-buttons-container shareaholic-ui no-print flat  block horizontal mini\">\n<div class=\"shareaholic-share-buttons-wrapper shareaholic-ui\">\n<div class=\"shareaholic-share-buttons-animation-wrapper\">\n<div class=\"shareaholic-share-buttons-heading custom\">\n<div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"ng-binding ng-scope\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"field field--name-field-article-img field--type-image field--label-hidden\">\n<div class=\"field__items\">\n<div class=\"field__item even\">\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"caption-processed\" src=\"https:\/\/www.commondreams.org\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/cd_large\/public\/views-article\/medicare_for_all_5.jpeg?itok=l12sdNll\" alt=\"&quot;The campaigns that exist today are receiving too little on-the-ground assistance for such a widely-supported issue.&quot; (Photo: National Nurses United\/flickr\/cc)\" width=\"955\" height=\"500\" \/><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"field field--name-field-main-caption field--type-text-long field--label-hidden\">\n<div class=\"field__items\">\n<div class=\"field__item even\">\n<p><em>&#8220;The campaigns that exist today are receiving too little on-the-ground assistance for such a widely-supported issue.&#8221; (Photo: National Nurses United\/flickr\/cc)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden\">\n<div class=\"field__items\">\n<div class=\"field__item even\">\n<div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Polls show that over 125 million adults in our country already favor full Medicare for all, with free choice of doctor and hospital without stifling networks. I say \u2018already\u2019 because, as of yet, there is no major national campaign underway showing that an \u2018everybody in, nobody out\u2019 system of health insurance costs less, with better outcomes, is simpler, without maddeningly inscrutable or fraudulent \u00a0bills, co-pays, deductibles and additional trap doors set by a bunch of greedy corporations. The campaigns that exist today are receiving too little on-the-ground assistance for such a widely-supported issue.<\/p>\n<p>A super-majority of only 535 members of Congress\u2014Senators and Representatives\u2014can make that decision. The bill\u2014H.R. 676, the \u2018Expanded &amp; Improved Medicare for All Act\u2019\u2014is now supported by 121 House Democrats\u2014two thirds of all the Democrats in the House of Representatives. So that\u2019s a good start.<\/p>\n<p>H.R. 676 has been referred to several, regular, Committees of the House whose Chairs are all Republican corporatists. So there have been no public hearings. The bill, not surprisingly, is not moving at all.<\/p>\n<p>Millions of Americans have had the bitter experience of denials of health care, staggering bills, pay-or-die drug prices and even loved ones dying because they couldn\u2019t afford health insurance (about 35,000 a year based on Harvard Medical School experts). \u00a0So, in the next month, imagine what would happen, if just ten million of the 125 million who support full Medicare for all wrote, telephoned or emailed their two Senators and Representative demanding action and a written response by their lawmakers (who don\u2019t pay postage).<\/p>\n<p>Just ten million Americans making the least difficult effort\u2014perhaps ending with a demand for a town meeting back home to educate the negative solons\u2014would strike the Congressional Dome like a thunderbolt. Are there a dozen leaders among you up for launching such an electrifying internet mobilization?<\/p>\n<p>Not to be confused with other lesser health insurance bills, mostly in the Senate, H.R. 676 is the real thing. It covers \u2018all individuals in the U.S. with free health care that includes all medically necessary care, such as primary care and prevention, dietary and nutritional therapies, dental services, and vision care.\u2019 No more premiums, co-pays or gaping deductibles.<\/p>\n<p>How does H.R. 676 pay for all these services? Five ways:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>(1) from existing sources of government revenues for health care, (2) by increasing personal income taxes on the top 5% of income earners, (3) by instituting a progressive excise tax on payroll and self-employment income, (4) by instituting a tax on unearned income (such as on capital gains), and (5) by instituting a tax on stock and bond transactions. Amounts that would have been appropriated for federal public health care programs, including Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children\u2019s Health Insurance Program (SHIP), are transferred and appropriated to carry out this bill.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Presently, all Canadians are covered at an average per capita cost half of what Americans\u2014insured and uninsured\u2014are having to spend for health care. The system proposed in H.R. 676 is similar to Canadian Medicare. It includes public funding and free choice of private delivery of health care. It also has provisions for better record keeping, prevention and quality control. There is even transition retraining for all those clerical and administrative jobs that would not be necessary after displacement of the present bloated, wasteful, redundant health care sub-economy.<\/p>\n<p>What would happen to the giant health insurance companies such as Aetna and United Healthcare? They would be prohibited from selling insurance that duplicates the benefits provided under H.R. 676. They could only sell benefits that are not deemed \u2018medically necessary,\u2019 such as certain cosmetic surgery operations.<\/p>\n<p>Rep. Keith Ellison (Dem.-Minn.), the deputy chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), is officially the lead House Democrat on the bill, which indicates that the DNC may be getting a little more interested in endorsing such legislation.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, Rep. Ellison is talking it up everywhere he travels. He says:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>One of the consistent applause lines we\u2019re all hearing is: \u2018We need Medicare for all.\u201d There\u2019s a lot of folks who feel that it\u2019s time for us to organize around that. It\u2019s a better policy, at a better price. People in labor, people all over the country, they\u2019re going to be driving the public conversation, raising the dialogue about this\u2026.What some people think is a really important progressive position is just what the rest of the industrialized world does.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Medicare for all is what the Pentagon does. It is what President Harry Truman wanted from Congress back in the nineteen forties!! It is time.<\/p>\n<p>So will the first ten million Americans step up and be counted by sending messages directly to their Senators and Representatives in the month of April? The amount of time required to send a letter, an email or a telephone call is so brief that activated citizens could be called the modern \u201cMinutemen\u201d for universal health insurance. Just think of all the tasks you do every day that take far more time, like trying to figure out bills, denials, exclusions, from this basic human right.<\/p>\n<p>Go to SinglePayerAction.org to get the details, the motivation and the groups with which to connect. The Congressional telephone switchboard is 202-224-3121. Make sure to give your legislators your name and contacts; they\u2019ll take the call or letter more seriously.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"field-wrapper-copyright-cond\" class=\"field-wrapper content-container clearfix\">\n<div class=\"field field--name-field-copyright field--type-text field--label-hidden\">\n<div class=\"field__items\">\n<div class=\"field__item even\"><em>This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License<\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>March 23, 2018\u00a0by Common Dreams Medicare for all is what the Pentagon does. It is what President Harry Truman wanted from Congress back in the nineteen forties. It is time. by\u00a0Ralph Nader &#8220;The campaigns that exist today are receiving too little on-the-ground assistance for such a widely-supported issue.&#8221; (Photo: National&#8230; <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2018\/03\/24\/ten-million-americans-could-bring-h-r-676-into-reality-land-relief-for-anxiety-dread-and-fear\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8189"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8189"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8189\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8190,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8189\/revisions\/8190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}