Progressive Maryland

 
PMEF Releases Its 2009 Legislative Scorecard

July 4: Declare Independence from the Insurance Industry
Download HCAN's Petition to Use at Parades & Festivals

See News Coverage & More Photos
Call your US Rep Now at 202-224-3121

• Matthew Weinstein's op-ed & Sean Dobson's letter in the Baltimore Sun
• See Article & Photos in AFL-CIO's Union City
• More Rally Photos by PM staff
• See June 22 Top Stories for more articles, videos and more...

Frederick County area citizens rallied July 1 for "Health Care for America Now!" Speakers included Guy Djoken from the NAACP, Vinny DeMarco and Carol Antonewicz from Health Care for All, Julianna Albowitz representing Senator Barbara Mikulski, Del. Sue Hecht representing Sen. Ben Cardin, and Progressive Maryland's Matthew Weinstein.
 

Progressive Maryland staff show banner at June 25 HCAN Rally

The Senate Finance Committee, chaired by Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT), appears set to approve a health care reform bill with no public plan option – so it has no teeth to spur competition, reduce costs, or improve care. They're betraying the 83% of Americans who favor "creating a new public health insurance plan that anyone can purchase," according to EBRI, a conservative business research organization (a June 21 NY Times/CBS poll found 72% want a public choice).

The disappointing setback, though not surprising, given the power corporate donors hold over Senators, makes turnout for Health Care for America Now's June 25 Rally/ Lobby Day at the Capitol all the more urgent. PM, HCAN's coordinator for Maryland, is working to send 1,000 Marylanders.

By contrast the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions (HELP) Committee plans to include a public health insurance option, like that in the primary House bill, in its version this week. Maryland's own Sen. Barbara Mikulski advocated strongly for it in the HELP Committee's hearing June 17. "Our current system is a combination of Adam Smith, Darth Vader and 'The Invasion of the Body Snatcher,'" she said. "The same arguments we heard against Medicare are the same we're hearing now... That's why I'm for a public option that holds the private options accountable..." (See video beginning at minute 105.)

"We want to create a public [health insurance] plan modeled on Medicare, with low administrative costs and freedom of choice of providers," Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md., in red jacket) told the health reform roundtable she held June 22 in Baltimore with Progressive Md. and our Health Care for America Now partners. See WMAR TV video

America's campaign finance system is our nation's peculiar form of political bribery. That's why Congress killed meaningful mortgage reform and it's so hard to pass systemic health care reform – decades after all other advanced countries.  The bipartisan "Fair Elections Now Act" would create a public financing mechanism so candidates won't have to rely on wealthy donors. Contact Your Senators and House Reps Now!
 

PM's Sean Dobson fires up participants at the rally and news conference supporting Wal-Mart workers' right to union representation June 3 in Landover Hills. Beside Dobson at left is Tony Perez, Political Director of UFCW Local 400, the union leading the charge to give Wal-Mart workers the right to organize.

• READ MORE IN 'TOP STORIES' IN THE MARYLAND PROGRESSIVE
• Wal-Mart Employees Rally in Landover Hills... for Union, Gazette, June 5
• Area Wal-Mart Workers Join Effort to Unionize, Wash Post, June 3

---

“I agree with you. I want to
do it. Now make me do it.”

- President Franklin Delano
Roosevelt at a meeting with
progressive reformers.

 

PLEASE JOIN OR CONTRIBUTE TO PROGRESSIVE MARYLAND!
Subscribe free to The Maryland Progressive & visit this site weekly.
Click here to submit news plus resource and event notices.