No CO OP! No COP OUT! HEALTHCARE REFORM NOW

Overwhelmingly we elected Barack Obama for change. Healthcare reform is imperative for this nation's health. 2.5 Trillion dollars is spent on healthcare and 47 million people are not insured.

47 million people still get sick. ER's across the nation are packed attempting to take care of people who can't go to a doctor. America spends 2.5 Trillion dollars on healthcare and we don't get much for our money. The ER is no place to manage Diabetes. It's no place to manage heart disease. It's no place to educate and prevent disease.

We are spending twice as much on healthcare than the rest of the world making corporations richer and our healthcare is poorer.

Insurance premiums have increased 5 times faster than the rate of inflation. The average family on an employer sponsored plan paid $12,298 a year in 2008. The projection at this same rate is for the same family in 2020 will pay $23,842 a 94% increase. The same coverage was $9,200 in 2003.

This is a crisis. The middle class in America is severely impeded. 66% of bankruptcy in America is due to medical bills. 60% of those had insurance.

In July, former healthcare executive Wendell Potter came forward as a whistle blower about the goal of  “consumer-driven plans,” a euphemistic term for shifting the financial burden from insurance company to consumer. Potter explained that these plans feature high deductibles and are really just another way for the insurance companies to make money from the suffering of their consumers. Claims representatives use a practice of recision to find loop holes to drop coverage when people get sick. This practice is not illegal.    

Congress will reconvene on healthcare this week, and it is reported that the Public Option has been taken out of the bill by Senator Max Bachus (D) Montana Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.

According to the Billings Gazette, most of the money raised by Baucus and his political action committee has come from groups and individuals associated with drug companies, insurers, hospitals, medical supply firms, health service companies and other health professionals. These donations total about $3.4 million, or $1,500 a day, every day, from January 2003 through 2008.

Baucus’s proposal is a government subsidization of the private insurance industry. Nothing in his “solution” controls cost or regulates the insurance industry.

77% of Americans want true reform of healthcare including a strong Public Option. Officials sent to Washington are not listening to us, they are listening to the lobbyists, the industry who pays for them to be there.

Join the nation's progressives, Democrats, Republicans who want REAL reform today! This is about us. This is the number one issue that is destroying the fabric of the middle class. In America, you are one illness away from bankruptcy.

This is how change happens. Help remind the President and Congress why we sent them there.  Reform is economically and morally the right thing to do.

STAND UP AND BE PASSIONATE! SIGN THIS PETITION REJECTING ANY BILL THAT DOES NOT INCLUDE A STRONG PUBLIC OPTION.

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