300 in 160

A campaign milestone:
---- 300 participants in 38 states
in 160 U.S. Congressional Districts

- Bob

Help the Take Off

For anyone wondering about the status of the Million Letters for Health Care campaign, whoever reads this can start spreading the word at a faster rate and contribute to the campaign's take-off to the one million mark.

Announcements had been limited, because final preparations had been in progress for this truly grassroots campaign.

Obama Recommends Letters

There's a new web page available today that provides one video and four audios. They document the very strong and very clear request by citizens (including audience clapping multiple times) during the Presidential campaign at Barack Obama's own health care meeting that he initiated and conducted. The requests during the meeting were for non-profit single-payer national health insurance, which is simply called "single-payer," for which he very strongly supported in 2003.

President Obama's recommendation for action when he was campaigning for the U.S. Presidency at that time is very clear: send a couple of thousand letters to every U.S. Representative, which he referenced as every U.S. Congressional District.

Go to "Obama Recomments Letters".
.

Five Months Left

An original emphasis of this website was the date 9/9/2009, which happens to be significant now due to what is occurring in Washington DC. Now it's 4/9/2009, so there are 5 months left ...

Members of the U.S. House, U.S. Senate and the White House Office of Health Reform are focusing on getting national legislation prepared for a new health care law by this summer or this fall. This is a very scary time for Americans who know the facts.

A good place for any American to start is to participate in the Million Letters for Health Care Campaign by going to www.medicareforall.org.

In the meantime people in other countries will continue to be amazed. They ask Americans why we continue to deny ourselves the advantages of non-profit national health insurance:

● All necessary care.
● Everyone included, pre-natal to the end-of-life.
● Dramatically less bureaucracy = lower cost.
● No more rationing based on ability to pay.
● Freedom to choose doctors, medical facilities, professions, jobs, and employers.
● Physician impact: lower costs to run private practices; more time for patients.
● Lower business costs = recovery & creation of jobs.
● A healthier workforce. Our life expectancy is 30th in the world; we rank 19th of 19 countries in minimizing deaths due to preventable diseases! When people can get to a doctor, we'll do better!

Campaign's First Day

The Million Letters for Health Care Campaign starts today.

As some word got out before today, people had already started signing up all over the country

See here for what happened at the pace of people signing up for monthly reminders:
Graph of Number of Participants

Website Name

The website name is now Medicare for All ... www.medicareforall.org

There are a few details yet to be done. But, overall, the change from www.ninenineohnine.org to www.medicareforall.org has gone smoothly.

One of the remaining details is to have a new blog website. Ah, so many details.

... Go ...

Based on the enthusiasm and excitement expressed so far it looks like the Million Letters for Health Care Campaign will be one of the biggest grassroots activities that the United States has ever seen.

The first official month of the campaign is April, during which time I and others will be notifying many more Americans about this opportunity to do the following 10 Minutes-a-Month Activity:

1 letter in the U.S. Mail to 1 person (U.S. Representative) 1 time per month after getting 1 reminder on the 1st of the month.

We need to work in our districts to get 2,299 in each district to sign up for the campaign by Getting Monthly Reminders.

The 2,299 participants in each of the 435 U.S. Congressional Districts equals a total of 1 million people.

Bob the Health and Health Care Advocate

Get Ready, Get Set ...

Status of Education -- it will happen naturally.

For a long time I thought the need was to educate as many Americans as possible FIRST ... and THEN get those Americans to write letters to their U.S. Representatives.

We've run out of time for that kind of ideal focus. [Although we DO need to try to have answers to questions and know which website is going to have those answers.]

As a brand new activist in Missouri observed to me this week in an e-mail, "... education is great, and will happen naturally (and by always having your great handouts with us!) when we're out talking to people to get names." (The handouts are being developed.)

Status of Contacting Affected Americans -- it must happen now.

Mentally prepare to get your track shoes on. (Get Ready, Get Set ...)

We must move very fast to contact the people who are most affected, which is not the "rich" (those comfortable with their situation, that is) and not the poor. It's the uninsured, the under-insured, the individuals whose costs are skyrocketing the most, the small businesses who hire those individuals and cannot afford to provide benefits. It's the couple in Massachusetts who implemented mandated health insurance and are faced now with a $7,000 per year premium and a $42,000 per year income!

"While the employee of a regional electric utility is complaining about monthly payroll deductions for his family that now exceed $500 or more on a $60,000 annual salary, the longtime employee of a local small electrician is looking at monthly payroll deductions for his family of $1,500 on a $35,000 annual salary. His apprentice is younger, and so is "fortunate" to have monthly deductions for his family of only $900 on a $20,000 annual salary. The electrician's helper making $9/hr can't afford even his half of the premium for just himself." --- as written by a health insurance agent

That same insurance agent wrote: "It is all of these folks (and there are tens of millions of them), coupled with those who have already been priced out of the market altogether, who will fuel the fire for radical reform."

But, unless we get our track shoes on, we will never contact those people who are suffering the most. Unless we find a handful, and then get referrals to other people, we will never reach them. Ask for their names, then contact them. Just this afternoon a friend called me. Before we finished the chat, I asked for and was given the name and information of an uninsured person in Michigan in another city.

So get mentally ready, because I will be ready to give you some "tools" to use on or before April 1, 2009.

Regards, Bob Haiducek
Bob the Health and Health Care Advocate

Confirmation

The conclusion has been confirmed again:
that over half of Americans want non-profit financing of health care.

You can feel solid that Americans want this.

See the updated version of the homepage with the confirmed information on it.
Chart of Americans' Support

Regards, Bob Haiducek
Bob the Health and Health Care Advocate

Vote by Jan 15, 5 pm

I recommend you going to the following web page and voting as it indicates there. Then, afterwards, act on the suggestions related to telling others about single-payer and about this voting opportunity.
A Million Votes for Single-Payer
(where million means as many as possible as fast as possible, since the deadline is January 15 at 5 p.m.)

This is an opportunity to spread the word about non-profit single-payer national health insurance and H.R. 676 and to get people to
learn or learn more.

Regards, Bob Haiducek
Bob the Health and Health Care Advocate