Advice for Obama, coming from the Ed Show in MSNBC....now

[JayMusgrove]

Seems like Robert Reich, and Kristina VandenH.....telling Obama what to do...

Get out on the trail, and get people to give personal stories, from Maine to California.

Let's have some ideas like this in the DU..........we need tens of thousands of people in front of hospitals giving testimony..in front of insurance companies.

Lots of great ideas. Let's get out there and get a single payer option back on the table, or at LEAST a federal option, to keep insurance companies more honest, (if possible).

[108]

1. great segment by ED

Keith, Rachael need to pick up where he left off, and don't stop

activists have gotten a little complacent since Obama, thinking everything was just going to fall into place

[FrenchieCat]

2. The Network and cable always cuts off anyone who isn't the President

when they televise these things.

That's why what you are advocating for the President
should be coupled with what we can do here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=8484631&mesg_id=8484631

[DrToast]

3. Ed is the only one that cares about this stuff

Rachel and Keith hardly touch on health care.

[TomCADem]

7. Ditto - Big Thank You To Big Ed

I am almost afraid that General Electric will pull the plug on Ed for being so vocal about supporting a public option. Can't have all those insurance company sponsors upset.

[vaberella]

4. Uh...I thought Obama was already doing that with Greenbay Town Hall meeting?! Am I wrong?

http://www.whitehouse.gov/video/President-Obamas-Health-Care-Town-Hall-Green-Bay/

Wasn't it also Obama that was having a health care drive and asking people to email and send in their stories?! Yes, I believe it was him.

http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/health-care-action-center/?source=feature

I don't get it...people are acting like these are original ideas and Obama isn't already doing this stuff or already implementing them for months now.

[avaistheone1]

6. Sending in stories is not going to do too much of anything.

Organizing parties for people to tell their stories at Obama's health care reform party did not do much of anything either. I went to one of the parties. Every single person who attended the meeting except one person from the insurance industry was for single payer. People were disappointed who attended the meeting that there was not real connection to health care reform and the tasks we were given of telling our stories and the 2nd and final task from Obama - to go out and perform community service on June 27th.

We were assigned alot of busy work. These are no/low impact activities in terms of health care reform.

Not to let this opportunity go wasted, instead we decided to form are own local group to educate and advocate for single-payer national health insurance.

[vaberella]

8. Did you read the OP? I'm going by the OP. Oy....

[avaistheone1]

11. Of course I dfid. But Obama must do alot more than having people write in stories

and have a parties where people tell their stories. Their was no real direction to these parties.

Whatever is Obama doing with all these stories? He must have millions of them by now.

I don't see his grand strategy here at all?

[Dragonfli]

13. The people at the party you attended were mostly for SINGLE PAYER you said?

I don't mean to bring up politics, but hypothetically if you were opposed to single payer, or even a public option that would lead to single payer, then wouldn't people enthusiastic for single payer yield stories too tainted to use for a non-single payer reform you were trying to promote?

They may have been discarded for lack of agreement with the white house position on this.

Why else are they not being used after having been gathered?
It is only a theory and I suppose the party you attended could have been unusual regarding single payer opinions in comparison to the others organized.

Is there any data collected or other accounts from these parties available to see what the pulse of the people was? Anyone ask them/you if they preferred single payer over the insurance hybrid? If so did anyone take down the results and tally them?

[vaberella]

14. It's probably because people didn't explain what a Public Option would entail.

I don't think there is enough Health economists around.

[Dragonfli]

15. I think no one knows yet what to explain.

There is as yet no clear cut version of a public plan decided on as far as I know.
I worry that Schumer's ideas will be used to shape final details - his concern is that a "public option" would be cheaper than Insurance company plans and would like to fashion any "public plan" in such a way to make it easy for them to compete with. If that is the case it would IMO defeat the purpose of a public option within the corporate hybrid - namely to force them to compete in order to drive down the prices.

There are other public options being discussed, most favor insurance company dominance but at least one I have heard is more along the lines of Medicare as a choice (what I would call a strong Public Option).

I do not know what to explain to people regarding a public plan because it is still a mystery plan as yet undecided.

How then can it be explained to people?
How then can people support it?

The only thing I know for sure is that anything other than single payer will include the 30% to 42% added overhead that the unnecessary insurers bring to the table - it is the only thing other than the power of denial that they do bring to the table. Yet here we are.

[kenny blankenship]

5. I agree of course that Obama must rally the people to pass real healthcare reform

Expectations should have been wound up to put pressure on the Congress. That hasn't been done so far, and a great deal of potential advantage has been lost - but it must be done NOW, even though the hour is late.

People need to know that it's not just them and their next door neighbor that is experiencing a healthcare crisis in one way or another, be it in terms of affordability or reliability - it's a supermajority of America.

People need to know that their President is WITH THEM, and that he understands the source of the obstruction, and that he will STAY with them and overcome it, and he will NOT sell them out. Universal healthcare has been bitterly opposed by those industry players who feel it will cut into their juicy profits as well as by those politicians who hate anything that empowers people acting together for a common good. It has been thwarted, vilified, shrugged off, and sabotaged by very powerful interests and there is NO POINT in pretending this won't be an all out fight. Nothing good will be accomplished by pretending we can all just hold hands and make a better tomorrow: somebody's goat is going to get skinned. If the enormous interests arrayed on the other side give it up without a bloody fight, you can be sure WE got screwed on the deal.

[jenmito]

9. K&R. Obama is GREAT on the town hall trail.

That was a great segment. :hi:

[sisters6]

10. YES__put SINGLE PAYER BACK ON THE TABLE.

[Cha]

12. Sounds like good

advice.

[Better Believe It]

16. So what organizations can/will organize that? The Democratic Party or Senate Democrats?

President Obama?

Moveon, labor unions?

Where are the liberal advocacy organizations? They were out in force during the election.

Perhaps some are sending e-mails, blogging or calling someone in Congress. But, that's not building a movement.