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ACTION ALERT: -- March 19, 2010:
Help Deliver the NYC Congressional Vote for national health care reform!
After a year of fits and starts, Congress is moving to finish up major national health care reform legislation. President Obama put forth a compromise proposal in late February, and Congressional leaders have used it to craft a final bill. The House is scheduled to vote on it this coming Sunday afternoon or evening. The Senate will then take it up next week, with the goal of voting on it before they adjourn for the upcoming Easter-Passover recess that starts on March 29. After nearly a century of struggle, our nation is finally moving forward to advance health care justice and establishing health care as a human right.
While the final legislation is not the ideal we'd all like to see (either in the form of a single-payer national health insurance program, or with provisions like a Medicare-based public health insurance option and a strong employer mandate), it will provide a new and much-improved foundation that our nation and states can build on to move toward universal health care over the coming decade. Millions will gain coverage through Medicaid, expansions of employer-based coverage, and new "Health Insurance Exchanges" that will pool people and offer discounted policies along with subsidies for low and moderate income people and families. Coverage standards will be improved, and the private insurance industry will be much more regulated and its worst abuses will end. Both Medicare and Medicaid will be improved in a variety of ways, with a particular emphasis on enhancing primary care. Finally, our health care delivery system will be made much more efficient to lower costs and improve quality, and many new community health centers will created.
To find out how your own Congressional district or community will benefit from health care reform, click here: http://energycommerce.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1717:hr-3200-americas-affordable-health-choices-act-of-2009-markup-district-by-district&catid=156:reports&Itemid=55#toc32
The good news: Almost all members of the NYC Congressional delegation are committed do supporting this historic bill. The only exception is Rep. Michael McMahon, who represents Staten Island and parts of southwest Brooklyn. As of this writing, he is still undecided.
What YOU can do:
1. Contact your own member of Congress to thank them for their commitment to reform and urge them to support the bill. You can find their contact information at www.house.gov
2. Call Rep. McMahon and urge him to support the bill, for the sake of not only his own district, but also for all New Yorkers and Americans. You can reach his Staten Island office at 718-356-8400, and his Brooklyn office at 718-630-5277. Please make this call whether or not you are a constituent -- you're a New Yorker after all!
Be sure to tune in to C-SPAN on Sunday afternoon and evening to watch the debate and vote. It will be truly a historic occasion not to be missed!
Thanks for all you do in the fight for health care for all in New York and across America.
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