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Find this and previous newsletters in full format at
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From the Executive Director
HISTORIC HEALTH CARE REFORM TAKES CENTER STAGE
Question #1: Will Reform Feature a Robust Public Health Care Plan Option - Or Will it be Taxpayer Dollars for HMOs?
Question #2: Will You Join PM in the Noblest Struggle Since the Civil Rights Act - Or Will You Sit on the Sidelines?
The budget Congress just passed clears the way for our country to finally tackle the greatest challenge that has confronted us for decades: Will the U.S. finally make quality health care a right for all? Lawmakers will decide this question in the next six months.
The first draft of President Obama’s health care plan would move our country in the right direction by guaranteeing health care for all through a variety of mechanisms, most importantly by allowing Americans the choice to keep their current private coverage or choose to opt into a high-quality public health plan.
A robust public option is vital because in the future HMOs and insurance companies will of course continue to gouge Americans - unless there is a good, affordable public plan as an alternative. But these same corporate malefactors are gearing up to block reform. Click NOW to learn how this historic battle is shaping up and what we in Maryland must do to win.
Top Stories
In Focus
Let's Cut Off HMOs, Banks and Drug Companies at the Knees - Help Enact the Federal 'Fair Elections Now Act'
Why did Congress just kill meaningful mortgage reform? Why do progressives have to fight so hard to pass President Obama's health care reform bill - decades after all other advanced countries enacted universal health care?
Because America's campaign finance system is our nation's peculiar form of bribery, giving deep-pocket special interests obscene and undue influence over lawmakers.
But now there is a solution before Congress. It is the bipartisan "Fair Elections Now Act". This bill would create a public financing mechanism for congressional campaigns so lawmakers would not have to rely on credit card companies and oil companies to finance their careers. The proposal is drawing both increasing grassroots support and opposition from wealthy interests whose influence it would undermine.
Let's enact this proven reform that will make it possible to pass laws to benefit all the people, not just the telecomm monopolies and drug companies and Wall Street swindlers who write big campaign checks to politicians. Click now to learn how you can help (and see a short video).
Progressive Maryland in the News
"Where the wage inequality 'hits the hardest is single-income families. But the middle class, the working poor and the poor have all lost ground when you adjust for inflation,' said Neil Bergsman, executive director of the Maryland Budget and Tax Policy Institute, which co-wrote the report with the Progressive Maryland Education Fund..."
-Federal Funding Shows Poverty May be on the Rise in Md., The Gazette, May 6
Featured guests at PM's Spring House Party, May 3 in Baltimore, included (left to right): Md. Secretary of Labor Tom Perez, PM's Sean Dobson, USAction's Jeff Blum, Rep. John Sarbanes, and Health Care for All's Vincent Demarco. Special thanks to host Betsy Krieger and the 50 supporters who gathered to exchange information and ideas. More on PM house parties.
Email news, resources, and event notices with links for the
Maryland Progressive to: newsletter@progressivemaryland.org
Find this and previous newsletters in full format at:
www.progressivemaryland.org/page.php?id=1031 |
