Greed Isn't Good

That's video of Richard Kurtz Kirsch speaking at the HCAN! press event yesterday in D.C.     Richard does a very good job of setting out the parameters of the campaign.   He says that it's about finding an American solution to America's  health care crisis and he isn't shy about targeting the rampant greed of insurance and pharmaceutical companies as one of the biggest obstacles to achieving that solution.   It's a smart plan because it acknowledges the need to work with industry but it also pushes for strict regulation of it so that private profits aren't put before public health. 

So HCAN! isn't all about getting H.R. 676, Medicare for All, passed.  But neither does it stand in the way of people who are working to have that happen, which should be good news for H.R. 676ers.  They should think of HCAN! as the $40M wedge in the window - a window that, with any luck, President Obama and a Democratic Congress (complete with Bush and Blue Dogs) will soon be opening and closing.   It's up to HCAN! to keep forcing that window open as wide as it can be to the possibility of reforming one-sixth of our economy.  It's up to everyone with a specific health care reform plan to try to get through it. 

Personally, I'll be thrilled with any reform package that simply includes a Medicare for All option, which is part of HCAN's principles.  Of course, I'm a Roosevelt Democrat, who believes that government can do good things for people.  But before we get there, we will have to get through to millions of people who believe that government is the problem; that health care isn't a human right and that people don't deserve what they can't pay for.

This is an observation from Marc Stier, SEIU's Pennsylvania health care campaign manager and the lead organizer of yesterday's HCAN! launch event in Philly:

If we win this fight and create a health care program that improves the lives of people, we will re-legitimate government action on behalf of social justice.  And that will make progress and reform in other areas possible in the future.

He's right.  There's more at stake here than health care reform, although that would be enough.  This is about changing people's minds about what government is capable of doing.  It's about reminding people about what they, as human beings, deserve and what they don't.