Scary time: need simplicity

We hope that you have a Happy Halloween, but all Americans should be scared of what is coming regarding health care: sky-rocketing premiums and out-of-pocket costs plus higher taxes at all levels of government (to pay for expanded government plus the health care costs of employees) ... and school board taxes (to pay for the higher health care costs of employees there).

We need to move
from the Scary (Complexity)
to Peace of Mind (Simplicity)

The final touches are being made on what will be the completion of a four-year development of the foundation of the Million Letters for Health Care campaign. The development started in the first quarter of 2007, and the final set of projects are scheduled to be completed during the first quarter of 2011. When those projects are completed, we will establish the organization of a set of contacts for each of the 435 U.S. Congressional Districts, after which we will promote the Million Letters for Health Care campaign. The four years of gradual preparation, followed by the establishment of the organization, is intended to be well prepared for the possibility of the promotional efforts causing a widespread and rapid activity of Americans informing each other about Improved Medicare for All with the solid information provided at this website.

The campaign will help accomplish the change to simplicity by helping get the support of the U.S. Congress.

In the meantime:
Know the Difference

See the charts. Click here to see what will be our "before" and "after" (the complexity and the simplicity).

We can and will get Improved Medicare for All.

Bob Haiducek, Bob the Health and Health Care Advocate on behalf of the hundreds of Americans who have invested the thousands of hours that got us to this point in history to this major accomplishment for our society.

3 Steps and New Goal

Three Steps to Success
... and a Goal for Each Phase

Three Steps. See the new home page. It has the three steps that we can each do to make a major contribution to getting Improved Medicare for All.

UPDATE about phases and goals: the plans are being updated. The campaign goals and plans will be communicated when the robust promotion of the letters campaign occurs ... after the final projects are done in 2011.

Who Will Achieve Improved Medicare for All. Success is in OUR hands ... in other words, we all need to be informing other Americans.

We can and will get Improved Medicare for All.

Bob Haiducek, Bob the Health and Health Care Advocate
on behalf of the hundreds of Americans who have invested
the thousands of hours that got us to this point in history
to this major accomplishment for our society.

Forever Grateful

CONTRIBUTIONS and MOTIVATORS
We are forever grateful.

This is a campaign status blog, and here is part of the status ...

One of the continuous aspects of the status of this campaign is the set of contributions that have been made during the three years it's taken to get to this point. There's been help from a whole lot of Americans, including one who lives and works in Japan.

I will be forever grateful for those contributions. It's been quite a team effort.

Another one of the continuous aspects of the status is how I and others are motivated. There are so many reasons that a person could use to quit this cause. One thing that motivates is thoughts of all those hardships which literally never occur in other countries, because individual citizens don't go into medical debt, which is unheard of. They don't have medical bankruptcies, suicides and other varying degrees of horror. Another thing is the receipt of so many messages over time of appreciation of our work and encouragement to keep on going with the efforts.

We who have worked and contributed to this effort will be forever grateful for those contributions.

We can and will get Improved Medicare for All.

Bob the Health and Health Care Advocate

Six Countries

SIX COUNTRIES

Six countries with 244 years of success at providing high quality health care at a low cost relative to the United States.

GO HERE to see the results of my recent data analysis of the USA compared to the six countries.

Comparisons: bar chart comparisons of:
the USA performance for its 310 million citizens
compared to the average performance of the other six countries for their total of 370 million citizens.

The Countries. The following countries are superstars when it comes to minimizing deaths under age 75 due to preventable diseases, thus having a low rate of amenable mortality:
Australia, Canada, France, Japan, Italy, and Spain.
those countries are at the top out of a list of 19; the USA is at the bottom.

My very best regards,

Bob the Health and Health Care Advocate

P.S. About the 244 years of experience:

Australia 36 years, Canada 38 years, France 65 years
Japan 49 years , Italy 32 years, and Spain 24 years.

GO HERE to see the current health care situation in terms of health care outcomes and health care costs.

Fantastic Video

FANTASTIC VIDEO

As the letters campaign grows, there's a chance that the number of views of the video will go from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands.

Click HERE to see the video (or read their comments) of eleven Canadians. In one part they express their laughter about any American trashing the Canadian system, which produces better health and economic outcomes: longer, healthier lives achieved WITHOUT the burden of co-pays or major medical bills and WITH freedoms of medical choices and lifestyle choices not imaginable by many Americans.

SPECIAL NOTE: If you CANNOT play videos on your computer then you CAN read the selected excerpts of what those Canadians say on the video.

EXTRA: Incredible AND Fantastic

What's both incredible and fantastic is the Million Letters for Health Care Campaign. We are about to have "in our hands" an incredible array of promotional materials, starting with an information card, a full-sheet handout, a half-sheet handout, a web page, and window treatment.

And THAT is just the BEGINNING!

Reviewers are hard at work now reviewing and refining these promotional materials.

The answers (the other blog posting of today) and the promotional materials are the last two steps of the development of a solid foundation for the letters campaign.

We can and will get Improved Medicare for All,
especially with the major contribution of the
Million Letters for Health Care campaign:
a massive grassroots activity of individual Americans.

CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP
TO STAND UP FOR
SINGLE-PAYER
HEALTH CARE
... the basis for
IMPROVED MEDICARE
FOR ALL

Incredible Resource

INCREDIBLE RESOURCE

The first two reviewers of the expanded Answers web page happened to use the same word to describe it: "Incredible!"

Even more content will be added that provides more answers to more questions. Some of the "answers" are replies to comments that you may hear that are often myths.

The reviewers and all of us hope you agree with their initial reaction of INCREDIBLE. We'd appreciate any feedback that you have about it.

Click here to check out the Answers.

We Can and Will

We can and will get H.R. 676 passed into law by 10/10/10 by Americans focusing on the following ingredients for success:

Mission = Legislate, Implement and Maintain an Improved Medicare for All

Vision = "The United States has improved Medicare for All."

Strategy = A Million Citizens: More Power Than Lobbyists

Goal = One Million Participants, making excellent progress on this by July 4, 2010 to celebrate our progress to new freedoms

Plan = Knowledge and Numbers: knowledge to embrace the positive change and numbers of participants in each U.S. Congressional District to make the positive change happen

We can and will get Improved Medicare for All via this truly grassroots activity of individual Americans. The result is peace of mind due to our new Freedoms, which are health care and lifestyle choices without unnecessary financial, physical and emotional stress

Read the details at these web pages.
Mission, Vision, Strategy, Goal, and Plan
Monitor the Status of climbing to one million.

Over 2000

Campaign milestone: now over 2000 participants as of March 19.

List of milestones (below):

Date	Number of Participants	Number of States	Number of Districts
Mar. 19 '10	2000	TBD	TBD
Feb. 6 '10	1590	49	340
Nov. 30 '09	1340	49	340
Sept. 2 '09	1000	49	309
Aug. 10 '09	870	49	290
June 27 '09	600	47	241
May 31 '09	300	38	189
TBD = to be determined after more Congressional Districts are determined

As per the expectation noted in previous status reports, the momentum of this important campaign now continues to build at a faster rate. We CAN and WILL get an improved Medicare for All.
We need for all Americans to be knowledgeable about "Improved Medicare for All" and "single-payer health care" ... and have a million or more sign up for the Million Letters for Health Care Campaign.
We can do that by following the steps in the plan:
http://www.mforall.org/pages/Plan.
The resulting progress is seen here:
http://www.mforall.org/pages/Status#participants_graph
- Bob for me and for all the Americans who have contributed and are contributing to the team effort to bring you the Medicare for All website and the Million Letters for Health Care campaign

Jump to 1590 participants and climbing

Campaign milestone: jump of 250 participants within 5 days -- February 6. Now 1590 participants in 49 states (plus District of Columbia) in 340 U.S. Congressional Districts: 78% of the 435 U.S. Congressional Districts

The cause of this jump is activity at a specific website. If you see this while the voting is still occurring, please do vote at the following webpage:
http://www.change.org/ideas/view/medicare_for_all_2

List of milestones:

Date	Number of Participants	Number of States	Number of Districts
Feb. 6	1590	49	340
Nov. 30	1340	49	340
Sept. 2	1000	49	309
Aug. 10	870	49	290
July 16	720	47	261
June 27	600	47	241
June 16	550	43	226
June 13	520	43	215
June 11	420	41	189
May 31	300	38	189

Note about the November 30 milestone: over 75% of the 435 U.S. Congressional Districts are now represented among the participants.

As the momentum of this important campaign continues to build, the numbers will grow at a faster and faster rate. Therefore, the reporting of milestones will move from the hundreds to the thousands!
Whoever can and wants to spread the word, ... the recommendations are provide here: http://www.medicareforall.org/pages/helpgetcare
We very much need for all Americans to have heard of "single-payer" and "improved Medicare for All" and to learn at least some key information about what means ... and then have a million or more sign up for the Million Letters for Health Care Campaign. The progress is seen here:http://www.medicareforall.org/pages/Status
- Bob

10/10/10 ... 9 months from today

Nine months from today is still a feasible amount of time to get H.R. 676 passed into law by 10/10/10, but it will take some quick decision-making to have a focus of individuals and groups, especially large groups, on educating each other about Medicare for All and it benefits and invite people to sign up at the website.

We need:
1) believers in the vision of flooding at least 435 offices with envelopes each month and
2) doers regarding telling Americans what Medicare for All is, what the benefits are, and getting Americans to quickly ramp up the degree of participants.

The Plan:
Establish Knowledge and Numbers:
1. Establish the knowledge in the minds of Americans
about the benefits of an improved Medicare for All
to help people welcome the change.
2. Establish necessary numbers of participants
as seen at the Status graph, climbing to one million.

The Strategy:
A Million Citizens: More Power Than Lobbyists

Bob