Posts tagged ‘legislation’
by Downtowner, posted on Thursday, December 10th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
My youngest daughter, Kate, is 31. She’s married with three children. She has Type I Diabetes and was medically bankrupt at the age of 20 when she fell into a coma and spent two weeks in intensive care while uninsured. She is the principal breadwinner for her family, and despite her health challenges and past financial hardships they are doing okay now. In fact, Kate is doing so well right now that the most pressing personal family problem on her mind is that her brother will be deployed to Afghanistan this spring. And that is weighing heavily on her mind, though I won’t here go into what Kate thinks of the Afghanistan escalation.
Up until the 2008 election there was no force on earth – including me – that could move Kate to so much as vote. Her take on it: there is no point, big business owns government, and nothing will change. But in 2007 Kate changed, radically, sharply, suddenly, changed her mind.
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Tags: 2008 elections, 2010 elections, Barack Obama, Democrats, early adapters, health care, insurance, legislation, public option, reform
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by Downtowner, posted on Tuesday, October 20th, 2009 at 9:00 pm
So it’s been a long few days. My company lost it’s biggest contract – the one I was assigned to for the balance of this year – last Wednesday. They are a governmental entity who shall remain nameless and their budget was cut by their state legislature. Bad news at casa Downtowner. Happened just as I was about to get on a plane to visit my daughter, son-in-law and 9 month old grand-daughter in Phoenix. So I went.
By the time I got there, one of my grand-daughters back here in Illinois was sick with the flu, and two days into the trip, my Mom (who lives in Florida, but was here in Illinois visiting my brother) was hospitalized with a wide array of symptoms, ranging from a blood infection to problems with her heart. So I’ll admit I was stressed already, but then I got the phone call…
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Tags: Bill Foster, health care, insurance, legislation, Organizing for America, public option, reform, single payer
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by John Laesch, posted on Saturday, September 19th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
Calls started going out 2-3 days ago to Democratic activists in Kane and Kendall counties to notify them that Democratic Speaker of the House, Mike Madigan had chosen to support Linda Healy to run against Kay Hatcher for State Representative from the 50th District.
Linda Healy is the former director of Mutual Ground, a local shelter for abused women and men. In my opinion, Healy is an excellent pick to challenge Kay Hatcher who voted against funding for Mutual Ground earlier this year when Hatcher voted “no” for a fully-funded budget.
To learn more about Linda Healy or donate to Mutual Ground, follow this link.
Local activists pressured Hatcher and Republican Leader Tom Cross in efforts to keep the doors open at Mutual Ground, but both voted against the shelter.
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Tags: 2010 elections, IL State Rep-50th, Illinois, Illinois House, Kay Hatcher, Keith Wheeler, legislation, Linda Healy, Mike Madigan, Mutual Ground, state budget, Tom Cross
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by John Laesch, posted on Thursday, September 10th, 2009 at 10:01 pm
On the eve of Barack Obama’s healthcare speech on 9/9/09, residents from Illinois’ 14th District took to the streets to encourage the President of the United States to push for comprehensive healthcare reform, Medicare for all.
Thanks to Fox Valley Citizens for Peace and Justice and the Aurora Peace and Justice group, about 50 people showed up from all walks of life to show their support for the expansion of Medicare to all Americans. More people congregated as people got off of work and those that could not stop and join us used their horns to show their support.
The Beacon News covered the event here and an in-district blogger, Bill Baar, covered it here. More photos are available here.
Tags: Aurora Peace and Justice, Fox Valley Citizens for Peace and Justice, health care, Illinois, insurance, Kane County, legislation, public option, reform, single payer, St Charles IL
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by Downtowner, posted on Tuesday, August 25th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
If you’ve been following the local press in IL-14, you know that Ethan Hastert is currently seeking the Repub nomination to fill his Daddy Denny’s former seat, currently held by Bill Foster, and you’d also be aware that this seat is high on the Repubs wish list for recapture in 2010.
If you’ve been following the local press for the last week, you’d be able to discern that, what with their “name” candidate, and their itch to take revenge for the lost of such a high profile seat, this area has become somewhat of a priority for targeting by the opponents of meaningful healthcare reform as well.
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Tags: Bill Foster, Ethan Hastert, health care, IL-14, Illinois, insurance, legislation, reform
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by Downtowner, posted on Monday, August 24th, 2009 at 6:53 pm
Couple of days ago I got an e-mail from my right-wing-nut sister. Well a lot of people got it; she’d broadcasted it to her entire address book. It was supposed to be a joke about the top ten things we can all expect under Obamacare. It wasn’t funny, so I didn’t laugh.
But I did lose my temper and responded “to all” with what can only be called a rant. The rant included lots of facts and figures and some helpful links, since I assume my sister is not likely to happen upon many of those fact-thingies while watching Faux News and listening to Rush. But it also included a thorough rundown of my own uninsurable and dubious state of health, along with a request that if my sister wished to helped Big Insurance execute me for sake of the conservative cause, she at least display enough shame to leave me off her e-mail list.
uh-oh
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Tags: Barack Obama, Blue Dogs, Democrats, health care, insurance, legislation, reform
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by John Laesch, posted on Monday, August 17th, 2009 at 9:51 am
I am a middle-class worker who has decent health insurance (an 80-20 plan) and recognizes that my recently elevated private insurance premiums are paying for those who don’t have health insurance. In addition to paying for the uninsured, I calculated that I am also paying an extra $4,000-7,000 per year into the pocketbooks of Wall Street profiteers.
Maybe my story about a $110/month increase in health insurance premiums is not significant compared to the many stories of those who lose their homes, businesses and dignity because we continue to embrace the status quo, broken, for-profit healthcare system, but it still needs to be told.
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Tags: carpenters, health care, insurance, John Laesch, legislation, public option, reform, single payer, unions
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by n0madic, posted on Sunday, August 2nd, 2009 at 9:27 pm
Last Thursday was probably the hottest and most humid day of the summer so far in Washington, DC, and yet several hundred health care reform activists, brought together by the Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Health Care, stuck it out in the heat to rally and lobby for single-payer. It was the 44th anniversary of the
passage of Medicare and the day began with the delivery of Medicare birthday cupcakes and cards to congressional offices. Later in the day activists met with their representatives to lobby for single-payer. And in between a rally was held in Upper Senate Park, just across the street from the Capitol. The remarks of several of the speakers and photos from the rally follow.
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Tags: Bernie Sanders, Code Pink, Donna Smith, Dr. David Scheiner, Dr. Margaret Flowers, Dr. Sidney Wolfe, Frankie Hughes, H. R. 3200, H. R. 676, health care, insurance, John Conyers, Jonathan Tasani, Jos Williams, Katie Robbins, Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Health Care, legislation, Mark Dudzic, Medea Benjamin, Medicare, reform, single payer, Tim Carpenter, Washington DC
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by n0madic, posted on Monday, July 13th, 2009 at 12:07 am
Last Wednesday, July 8th, Rep. John Conyers’ office brought Eve Gittelson, aka “nyceve,” a leading blogger on health care issues at Daily Kos, and Jane Hamsher, founder of the blog FireDogLake, to Capitol Hill to present a briefing on health care to congressional staff.
More specifically, as Conyers legislative assistant Joel Segal put it, Eve was there to “talk about her perspective as a blogger. What she hears day in, day out, from people about what they want to see in a
national health insurance program. What are their concerns, what are their problems?” And Jane was there to discuss organizing strategies, what she thinks the American people want, and what the role of congressional staff and Members of Congress is in putting a good bill through. She was also there to talk about a project she’s engaged in, seeking to get forty members of Congress to go on record on video saying that if there’s no public plan like Medicare, then there will be no health care reform this year.
Rep. Conyers himself joined the briefing as well, leading a Q&A session that turned into an initial planning session for a prospective hearing on the health care crisis, perhaps to be held on Capitol Hill during in August recess.
Eve and Jane’s remarks, as well as more on the Q&A session, after the jump.
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Tags: Eve Gittelson, health care, insurance, Jane Hamsher, John Conyers, legislation, nyceve, reform, U. S. House
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by Downtowner, posted on Sunday, July 12th, 2009 at 1:58 am
In a move that surprised me (because I’ve been having an ongoing conversation with his spokesperson Shannon O’Brien and have been unable to get a definitive answer) Bill Foster signalled his support for a strong public option, without triggers, when he signed a letter from 22 members of the New Democrat and Blue Dog coalitions to Nancy Pelosi last Wednesday.
A copy of the letter is posted here on Firedoglake.
There’s more…
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Tags: Bill Foster, health care, IL-14, Illinois, insurance, legislation, reform, U. S. House
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