Monday, Feb 8th, 5:20 PM Gather Northwest corner of 40th St. and 8th Ave., NYC
Following up on our successful Grand Central actions in November and December we're moving to Port Authority where we'll march inside spreading the message - Yes Obama, there is a better way -- Medicare for All.
If you get to the gathering place after 5:20 and the group has gone inside already, just wait in the main hall of the south building (40th & 8th) until you see a crowd with single-payer signs and shirts. The group will be doing repeated loops inside the buildings, so don't worry if you don't see us right the way, we'll loop back.
Download Announcement Flyer to post and distribute. Download Action Flyer if you can print them and bring them with you the day of the action to distribute.
ACS Healthcare Debate February 11th, 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm, reception to follow. Columbia Law School, Jerome Greene Hall, 435 W. 116th Street (Off Amsterdam Avenue), NYC Jim Dean (Democracy for America), Jonathan Tassini, and some right wingers from the Manhattan Institute and American Enterprise Institute will debate Healthcare reform. We'd like a lot of single payer supporters in the room obviously. Click here for full details.
Upcoming PHIMG General Meetings Sunday Mar. 7th, 1pm. Sunday Apr. 11th, 1pm. Location for all three: 25 W. 43rd Street, 18th Floor, NYC. As always our monthly meetings are open to the public. Bring a friend!
Jeff Cohen, founder of FAIR - Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, answers the question : Why did swing voters abandon the Democratic Party in Massachusetts?
"The only thing Democrats can be counted on doing after being elected is demotivating their base."
"Democrats strategy - Fake Left, Move Right."
If you are a Democrat, declare yourself a Medicare for All Democrat and declare your intention to only support candidates for office that will forcefully fight for Medicare for All.
Medicare for All supporters respond to Obamas SOTU call for "Better Ideas"
Saturday, 30 January 2010 16:55
In this video recorded by Single Payer Action, Dr. Margaret Flowers (Congressional Fellow, PNHP) attempts to deliver to the White House a packet of information on Medicare For All in response to Obamas State of the Union address.
Dr. Flowers was turned away on Anthrax/Security fears.
Undeterred, "Dr. Flowers joined colleague Dr. Carol Paris to try again to get their message to President Obama, but this time by going to the Renaissance Baltimore Harborplace Hotel, where the president was meeting with House Republicans, with a large banner reading, "Letting you know: Medicare for all."
Because they wouldn't leave the hotel sidewalk and refused to have their message marginalized again, they were both arrested. The two physicians were briefly taken into custody by law enforcement officials, issued a citation and then released. "
When Democratic elected officials say Single Payer or Medicare for All isn't politically viable they really mean that the Democratic Party won't be politically viable if they make a serios go at single payer. This is because they will lose all the campaign donations they get from the PROFIT Driven elements of our healthcare system. It's not a secret that the Democratic party is addicted to cash from the very elements who are destroying our healthcare system - big pharma, big investor-owned hospitals, and the insurance company jackals.
But the cost of all those contributions goes farther then not supporting Single Payer. They had to BURY single payer. No CBO score, no debate, no votes.
Why? If Congress had taken a serious look at Single Payer they would have widely publicized the selling points of single payer, and exposed the beltway consensus plan for the expensive joke it is.
Single Payer:
1. Saves billions in eliminated waste. $180-300 billion a year. That is money that will not need to be raised in new taxes. Single Payer is the most fiscally conservative reform plan there is.
2. Single Payer gives 100% of Americans a Cadillac plan. Not tied to your employer. No deductibles, no copayments, no guessing what is covered or what is not covered, no need to consult a list of providers to see where you can go. No claim denials. No murder by spreadsheet.
Let's contrast that to the consensus plan.
PAY-TO-PLAYer Healthcare Reform: (aka Mandate and Subsidize)
1. Force every American to buy a defective financial product from big insurance (which are basically Wall Street firms)
2. Add more toothless, hard to enforce regulations for the insurers, increasing complexity and costs.
3. Allow insurers to continue to offer "affordable" Pinto plans that leave you vulnerable to bankruptcy, deny claims, find new ways to screw over small community hospitals, deny care to patients, tie up doctors in red tape, etc.
4. Shovel trillions of tax payer dollar subsidies to the hugely profitable big insurers.
The consensus plan is another bail out for the Financial Sector and it is a SCANDAL that this has been foisted upon the Democratic party by Wall Street and it is a scandal that so many "Good" Democrats just went along with this for the sake of "unity".
So now you see why Baucus had to avoid these comparisons by taking single payer off the table and having the Baucus 8 arrested.
Who are we? Why are we here? PHIMG (pronounced P-H-I-M-G) is a coalition of NYC-based activists working for REAL health care reform. PHIMG was formed to shine a spotlight on the underlying cause of our health care crisis: private insurers. Private insurer middlemen needlessly add cost and complexity, ration care based on profit goals, impede the practice of medicine, and block real reform. Only by directly confronting big insurance can we solve the health care crisis. The solution is to eliminate PHIs by improving and expanding Medicare to cover all residents of the USA, as proposed in HR 676.
Join PHIMG - attend one of our upcoming local events in New York City. If you are not in New York City start a group like PHIMG in your neck of the woods. The best way to learn about PHIMG's history is to watch the videos we have produced of our past actions, which you can find below.
(TIP: Click on a video to start it, and then click again, the video will play in a larger size.)
Gather Northwest corner of 40th St. and 8th Ave., NYC