From Don McCanne's quote-of-the-day

The Vice-Presidential Debate
October 2, 2008

Sarah Palin: (in her closing statement) It was Ronald Reagan who said
that freedom is always just one generation away from extinction. We
don't pass it to our children in the bloodstream; we have to fight for
it and protect it, and then hand it to them so that they shall do the
same, or we're going to find ourselves SPENDING OUR SUNSET YEARS
TELLING OUR CHILDREN AND OUR CHILDREN'S CHILDREN ABOUT A TIME IN
AMERICA, BACK IN THE DAY, WHEN MEN AND WOMEN WERE FREE.

Video and transcript:
http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/president/debates/vice-presidential-debate.html

And...

Ronald Reagan Speaks Out Against Socialized Medicine
LP recording, 1961, Woman's Auxiliary of the AMA

Ronald Reagan: Write those letters now. Call your friends, and tell
them to write them. If you don't, this program (King-Anderson version
of Medicare) I promise you will pass just as surely as the sun will
come up tomorrow. And behind it will come other federal programs that
will invade every area of freedom as we have known it in this country,
until, one day, as Norman Thomas said, we will awake to find that we
have socialism. And if you don't do this, and if I don't do it, one of
these days, you and I are going to SPEND OUR SUNSET YEARS TELLING OUR
CHILDREN, AND OUR CHILDREN'S CHILDREN, WHAT IT WAS ONCE LIKE IN
AMERICA WHEN MEN WERE FREE.

WHAM campaign (Women Help American Medicine):
http://www.larrydewitt.net/Essays/Reagan.htm

mp3 audio of "Ronald Reagan Speaks Out Against Socialized Medicine"
http://blogfiles.wfmu.org/KF/reagan1.mp3


Comment:  If you really care about the future of our health care
system, you should give some thought to the motivation of the
McCain/Palin camp in selecting this closing statement for her debate.

Obama and Biden support a greater government role in ensuring that
more individuals have affordable health care and health care coverage.
McCain and Palin support freedom and individual responsibility in
accessing health care and health care coverage. If you need health
care, well designed public policies can work for all of us, but
private policies can work only for those with the financial means to
obtain adequate coverage.

For her closing statement, the McCain/Palin advisors selected the most
notorious attack on a government role in health care, deceptively
cloaked in the rhetoric of freedom. That should tell you something.

Freakonomics blog, new york times, September 26, 2008,  12:22 pm Your Country Would Like to Treat You to a Doctor’s Appointment By Daniel Hamermesh The financial crisis is getting all the headlines and, so it is claimed, occupying all the attention of at least one presidential candidate . Yet a bigger economic issue is hardly being addressed: the exploding costs of health care in the U.S., where we spend a far greater share of our incomes on health than people in other rich countries. How do other countries avoid having health care attract an ever-growing share of resources under their systems of universal coverage and still produce health outcomes at least as good as ours? One way was made clear yesterday, when, as a (temporary) citizen of Bonn, Germany, my wife received a letter saying she had been scheduled for a free mammogram at a particular time and place. With a preset appointment, no effort is required to arrange things; this arrangement would ...continue reading

Real economic help for working families. Message of the Week from the Herndon Alliance- September 23rd There’s a lot of talk that health care reform may have to wait until better economic times. And hard working Americans need real economic relief now. That’s why it’s more important than ever that we keep the connection between health care reform and the economy front and center in our communications. Health care costs are a very personal economic issue for hard working American families. Securing affordable health care is second only to rising gas prices as the top economic concern of voters. We need to remind people that fixing our broken health care system can help them reduce their medical expenses and put money back in their pockets. The strongest messages are built around the experience of middle class voters and their increasing concerns about being able to afford quality, affordable care for themselves and their families. Dial Tested Examples: “We need to make real ...continue reading

Why Obama's Health Plan Is Better By DAVID CUTLER, J. BRADFORD DELONG and ANN MARIE MARCIARILLE Wall Street Journal, September 16, 2008 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122152292213639569.html The big threat to growth in the next decade is not oil or food prices, but the rising cost of health care. The doubling of health insurance premiums since 2000 makes employers choose between cutting benefits and hiring fewer workers. Rising health costs push total employment costs up and wages and benefits down. The result is lost profits and lost wages, in addition to pointless risk, insecurity and a flood of personal bankruptcies. Sustained growth thus requires successful health-care reform. Barack Obama and John McCain propose to lead us in opposite directions -- and the Obama direction is far superior. Sen. Obama's proposal will modernize our current system of employer- and government-provided health care, keeping what works well, and making the investments now that will ...continue reading

New York Times Op-Ed, September 16, 2008 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/16/opinion/16herbert.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&ref=opinion&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin McCain’s Radical Agenda By BOB HERBERT Talk about a shock to the system. Has anyone bothered to notice the radical changes that John McCain and Sarah Palin are planning for the nation’s health insurance system? These are changes that will set in motion nothing less than the dismantling of the employer-based coverage that protects most American families. A study coming out Tuesday from scholars at Columbia, Harvard, Purdue and Michigan projects that 20 million Americans who have employment-based health insurance would lose it under the McCain plan. There is nothing secret about Senator McCain’s far-reaching proposals, but they haven’t gotten much attention because the chatter in this campaign has mostly been about nonsense — lipstick, celebrities and “Drill, baby, drill!” ...continue reading

Sat, 20 Sep 2008 Don McCanne's "Quote of the day" mailing list Contingencies September/October 2008 Better Care at Lower Cost for Every American By John McCain We can no longer afford to promise more than we can deliver. Nor can we risk misdiagnosing the problem and devising a cure that might harm the patient. The problem is not that most Americans lack adequate health insurance. The vast majority of Americans have private insurance, and our government spends billions each year to provide even more. Fundamental health care reform must begin with restoring control to individuals and their families as health care consumers and patients and making them the central focus of our health care system. Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation. ...continue reading

I drove down to San Diego from Los Angeles on a Tuesday morning. Upon walking into the office, I was immediately greeted by the campaign manager and two volunteers who were both busy and friendly. I was quickly introduced to the field director and deputy field director and could immediately sense their enthusiasm for the race: Nick Leibham - Democrat, running against Republican incumbent - Brian Bilbray. The walls were covered in maps of the 50th district and Nick Leibham for Congress posters. I stayed Tuesday and Wednesday night with a volunteer who offered her seaside home to me shortly after I walked through the door. There was a sense of common purpose that drew positive energy through the small office.  We all worked until late, making calls to potential voters until about 9pm. On Tuesday and Wednesday nights, the field directors took me out to see some of the San Diego nightlife. We had a good time, and caught ourselves still talking about the campaign over ...continue reading

I have been home in Los Angeles for 24 hours. I finished my Obama Organizing Fellowship, and wanted to send out one last reflection on my time working on Obama's Campaign for Change in South Eastern Colorado.   Prior to my time in CO, I didn't comprehend the power of Wal- Mart. It functions as the social center of some of these towns. La Junta is the largest town in the three counties where I worked and has a population of 7,200 and shrinking. Wal- Mart moved in a few years ago and I was told that a half dozen mom and pop shops shut down within a year: a grocery store, 2 hard ware stores, a clothing shop, and a small bank. The town offers few jobs and the college educated kids more often than not end up working at Wal- Mart. Previously, I understood in theory the effect Wal- Mart could have on the economy of a small town. But it is jarring to see the juxtaposition of people filing in and out of the Wal- Mart's doors (24 hours a day) in close proximity ...continue reading

One of the counties I organize for the Obama Campaign has some very interesting local politics. The woman who is the local Dem Chairperson is at war with the others in the county party hierarchy. I had been warned by the soon to be elected state Assemblyman and my field director that the Chairwoman, we'll call her Sarah, is hyper-controlling and "all talk and no action". Apparently in the recent past, members of the local Democratic leadership had tried unsuccessfully to take away her Chairmanship. I decided to deal with the Chairwoman head- on; I called her. Sarah immediately tested me by firing off a number of names of Dem activists in her town and asked if I had talked to them. then she paused, "you haven't talked to Russ, have you?" I later learned that she is also at war with Russ (who is the vice chairman). She described how decimated she had been in 2004 by Kerry's lose and at that point needed to act. At that point she had recently retired, she was ...continue reading

A few days ago I drove out to a small town in a rural community in Colorado when I am the Obama community organizer. That morning, I met with a Mormon woman in her mid sixties. She lives in a humble home, next to her red barn in the middle of a corn field. She has a big “proud to be a Democrat” sticker by the door to “warn them when they knock.” I sat down at her kitchen table and while sipping apple juice in a plastic cup I shared with her why I decided to put off starting my job and, and with my wife’s blessing, left her in LA for the summer to go to where the Obama campaign needed me. I explained that I am tired of being unable, as a physician, to address the underlying causes of most of the health care problems of my patients: poor urban design with limited access to parks, impoverished neighborhood with little access to fresh produce, schools where the government stresses test scores and not relationships between students and ...continue reading

An entry from Paul Lee, who worked on Darcy Burner's Congressional campaign in Washington's district 8. I really didn't know what to expect when I agreed to intern at a congressional campaign.   I had done some issue campaigning before concerning universal healthcare, but I had never been involved in a political campaign.   The initial reason I wanted to get involved was because of the excitement behind Barack Obama's campaign and a strong interest I gained in health policy.   Although I wasn't able to do any policy work, it turned out to be a great experience participating in and observing the workings of a political campaign.             For the most part, I spent my time phonebanking on the weekdays and canvassing on the weekends.   There was definitely an adjustment period to get used to the long hours on the phone and the 10 hr work days everyday.   There were already ...continue reading

Healthcare Quote of the Day, by Dr. Don McCanne Families USA, Herndon Alliance, Westen Strategies, Lake Research Partners May 22, 2008 How to Talk About Health Care Reform: Summary of Research on Health Care Messaging Celinda Lake and Drew Westen If you want to see universal health care enacted, stop using that phrase. Message development: Using focus groups of swing voters and online dial-groups Conservative message: Families should be in charge of their health care dollars. Rising health care costs are a problem, and the best way to bring them down is to increase competition among health care providers and put an end to these million dollar lawsuits that drive up insurance costs and put doctors out of business. The best solution to our health care problems is to let the free market work, foster more competition, and help people deal with the rising costs of coverage with health savings accounts that allow people to manage their own health care ...continue reading

Healthcare Quote of the Day, by Dr. Don McCanne The Wall Street Journal June 3, 2008 Hospitals Put Patients' Debt Up for Auction By Sarah Rubenstein In a move that consumer groups say could increase pressure on people with unpaid medical bills, some hospitals are trying out a new tactic to recoup patients' debts: They're auctioning the debt online. Hospitals have long relied on outside collection agencies to go after debtors. Under traditional arrangements, these agencies receive a percentage of any money they get from a debtor; the more they collect, the more they earn. Now, some of the same collection agencies, as well as other firms that purchase debt outright, have begun participating as bidders in online auctions, in which they buy the debt or provide guaranteed payments to hospitals for access to the unpaid accounts. Some experts say this gives them more reason to aggressively pursue patients in arrears. Auctions can drive up ...continue reading

Healthcare Quote of the Day, by Dr. Don McCanne The New York Times June 5, 2008 A City Where Hospitals Are as Ill as the Patients, By Jennifer Steinhauer For thousands of residents of South Los Angeles who had depended on the large county-run King-Harbor hospital, the past 10 months have been a grueling exercise in cobbling together medical care. When King-Harbor was shut by federal officials, it became the 15th general acute care hospital to close in Los Angeles County since 2000, about half of which served residents in South Los Angeles. The loss of King-Harbor was less a seminal moment than another episode in the continuing health care ordeal among this city's sickest and poorest residents. South Los Angeles is one of the most difficult places in the nation to both receive and give medical care. Family doctors are few and far between, and the area is one of the hardest to draw new doctors to, physician recruiters say. The vast majority of residents in ...continue reading

The New York Times June 5, 2008 A City Where Hospitals Are as Ill as the Patients By Jennifer Steinhauer For thousands of residents of South Los Angeles who had depended on the large county-run King-Harbor hospital, the past 10 months have been a grueling exercise in cobbling together medical care. When King-Harbor was shut by federal officials, it became the 15th general acute care hospital to close in Los Angeles County since 2000, about half of which served residents in South Los Angeles. The loss of King-Harbor was less a seminal moment than another episode in the continuing health care ordeal among this city's sickest and poorest residents. South Los Angeles is one of the most difficult places in the nation to both receive and give medical care. Family doctors are few and far between, and the area is one of the hardest to draw new doctors to, physician recruiters say. The vast majority of residents in central Los Angeles are uninsured or are on the ...continue reading