Yes We Can! Long Island 2012YWC!LI’s rally for a Strong Public Option is gaining steam as we approach the weekend. In addition to having the Long Island Progressive Coalition join us as rally sponsors, I am delighted to announce that Organizing for America will be a supporter of, and participant in, Saturday’s event in Mineola. Geoff Berman, Field Liaison for OFA for New York State will address the rally. The Communications Workers of America-Local 1104 is supporting our rally. Congressman Jerrold Nadler, 8th Congressional District is supporting the rally. Long Islanders for Change has added its membership’s support to the rally. A number of Democratic Clubs continue to sign on. We will list them as a group in a later announcement.
********
On President Obama’s Speech to the Nation
There were several opportunities for every American to stand and cheer President Obama in our homes this evening. Other than stating he will not sign a bill that does not include a public option, few of us will have a problem with his speech.
The most energizing piece for me was:
I will not waste time with those who have made the calculation that it’s better politics to kill this plan than improve it. I will not stand by while the special interests use the same old tactics to keep things exactly the way they are. If you misrepresent what’s in the plan, we will call you out.
There is no time to be wasted. This is the moment. And all Democrats, Independents, and liberal, progressive-thinking Americans need to unify behind our president.
When I was just a year or so old, President Truman asked Congress to enact national compulsory health insurance to be funded by payroll deductions (like Social Security and Medicare) so that all citizens, regardless of their ability to pay, would receive medical and hospital coverage. Following his State of the Union, Republicans resisted.
Truman lambasted Republicans who dominated Congress for holding up progress on medical care. Truman’s accomplishments included: a GI bill that sent 8 million Americans to college; doubling Social Security benefits; increasing the minimum wage.
However, despite his stalwart, ongoing battle for medical insurance he failed in that effort.
Harry Truman, frail and failing, sat beside Lyndon Johnson in 1965, as the president signed the Medicare bill. By then I had a family with two kids. What took so long for this nation’s representatives to reach such a sensible decision–an essential decision—a moral decision?
Americans cannot allow forty years to pass again without substantive healthcare and insurance reform. Too much is at stake for too many people.
Tonight President Obama laid down the gauntlet: I will not waste time with those who have made the calculation that it’s better politics to kill this plan than improve it. I will not stand by while the special interests use the same old tactics to keep things exactly the way they are. If you misrepresent what’s in the plan, we will call you out.
It seems apparent, despite a sensible and moral expectation for a single-payer plan so many of us cling to, that we must unite behind a president whose sensibility and morality in unquestionable. He demonstrated the strength and compassion of Harry Truman and Ted Kennedy.
We cannot allow this opportunity to pass.
Join with us this Saturday in Mineola to let it be known that we remain committed to the change we voted for nine months ago.
Marvin
0 Responses
Stay in touch with the conversation, subscribe to the RSS feed for comments on this post.