Vote On the Weiner Single Payer Amendment - It Is Happening!

[clear eye]

Source: Working for our Common Good

Congressman Weiner's office is saying that because of our phone calls, faxes, and demonstrations, Speaker Pelosi is keeping her promise to allow the Weiner single-payer amendment a vote on the floor of the House. I am getting conflicting opinions about whether or not a full floor debate is going to be allowed.

After nearly being shut out of the discussion completely, single-payer Medicare for All will get a vote for the very first time in history - probably tomorrow - Friday, Nov. 6th.

This is the one opportunity for your elected officials to go on record as supporting the only universal, comprehensive, cost-effective solution to the health care crisis.

Read more: http://ourcommongood.blogspot.com/2009/11/vote-on-weiner-single-payer-amendment.html

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The vote on the Weiner amendment will happen either today(11/6) or tomorrow(11/7).

Let your member of Congress know that we are watching, and that their vote will impact them on election day.

Many people are calling to get the current unamended bill passed, so the lines are busy. If you can't get through on your Representative's DC line, call their local district office.

This is our chance to get members on record w/ their support. It will help us in the future.

[Demeter]

1. How Noblesse Oblige of Nancy

I fart in her general direction.

[clear eye]

3. They won't be voting on Pelosi. n/t

[sarahlee]

19. Weiner has withdrawn his amendment

Thanks for the link to my blog and the info about the Amendment - just wanted to let you all know that Rep. Weiner has withdrawn his amendment. Info here:
http://ourcommongood.blogspot.com/2009/11/anthony-weiner-withdraws-his-single.html


We will keep fighting for real healthcare reform. Just a bit less so today.

[clear eye]

20. Say it ain't so, Tony.

Thanks for the update.

La lucha continua.

[sarahlee]

22. Disappointing, but what Kucinich and Conyers wanted

This is a movement for real reform and it will not die today. No vote is better than a really poor vote, given the benchmark it would set for reform down the road.

Thank you for pushing the votes - we will now work to get some reform and then as soon as Obama signs a bill, start again on the push for Single Payer.

What we can't do is stop educating people about what real reform - i.e. single payer - looks like and the money it would save, so we are not starting from scratch the next time the issue comes up. And it will.

Peace and Blessings and gratitude for your activism.

[clear eye]

29. Fortunately the movement is bigger than Kucinich & Conyers.

I disagree that a poor showing would have affected the outcome adversely. It would have shown that we could get the idea onto the floor--a small symbolic win. Of course the corporate MSM would frame it as a failure. They frame everything we do as a failure. And we reframe it on our websites, in the email we send our lists, in our blog posts, and in the lit we distribute. When we eventually get the program enacted, they will still call it a "failure".

The phone calls for the Weiner amendment were huge. Members of Congress knew they would take a hit for opposing it. Who knows how many would have voted for it?

Frankly, I think our "friends" in Congress were more concerned w/ being blamed for the failure of a "public" option however unrelated in reality, and no matter how poor the final po version, and how negatively the rest of the bill affects us, than in the Weiner amendment's impact on the progress of single-payer. Rep. Weiner in his withdrawal statement basically said so.

Obviously we've got a lot of work to do advancing our cause, to earn more respect.

[sarahlee]

28. More with Action needed today - Contact Rules Committee Members

http://ourcommongood.blogspot.com/2009/11/single-payer-updates-with-action-item.html

[derby378]

2. Nice to see there's some movement in the direction of actual health reform

I'll be very interested to see where this goes.

[clear eye]

5. Please call your Congressmember

since it sounds like you would like single-payer.

For once there is something we can do.

[sarahlee]

25. Redirect your Action

The removal of the Weiner vote undoubtedly helps the effort to force some of the 57 congress members who wrote to Pelosi in July keep their word. They said they would not support a bill without a public option tied to Medicare rates. If even 40 of them keep their word, the current bill will fail. And we will have a second round, in which we can push for single-payer and achieve at least a better result than the rotten corpse of a bill being voted on this weekend.

If we could have had a second round AND a strong but failing vote for national single-payer, that would have been better. But the single-payer vote was going to be used as cover for voting for a bad bill. Depriving conniving congress critters of that cover is decidedly a good thing, assuming healthcare advocates can come to terms with it and not rip each other's throats out.

If congress members in favor of real helthcare reform were able to work with each other, or if activists were, other possibilities would open up. And if we have a round 2 in which advocates for a public option admit that single-payer would be better and include single-payer in all of their discussions as the ideal that Americans actually prefer, wonderful things might become possible. But unless single-payer advocates admit that winning in one state would be a good thing, rather than a loss of purity, we may not save any lives. Our most likely path to national single-payer is to get it in a state first.

And we could still facilitate that if we all got together and forced the conference committe to put the Kucinich Amendment back in, or if we forced House members to insist on voting No on Saturday unless the Kucinich Amendment is put back in

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/11/6/801346/-No-Vote-on-Single-Payer

[clear eye]

31. How do you figure that it does anything to force members to actually insist on a strong p.o.?

Is there some logic there, or are you just taking someone's word for it?

[Oregone]

6. Whatever happens, it gets the liars on record

You know, the people who say, "I support single-payer but it wouldn't have the votes so we are doing this piece of shit instead..."

Well, here is their chance to cast their symbolic vote in favor of it. If they fail to do so, primary them and cut off all public funds. Not one more damn dime

[change_notfinetuning]

17. Exactly the point. Let's find out who we need to replace next election. n/t

[Delphinus]

4. My congressman (yuck!)

wrote me and said "trust that I will do everything in my power to stop the Democrats from getting this through" ... or something along those lines.

[enlightenment]

7. Did you write back and say,

"trust that I will do everything in my power to remove you from office in the next election"?

[clear eye]

9. Then call friends who live in better districts

to let them know that this vote is about to happen.

Please, folks. At least let's make them defeat us, instead of defeating ourselves first.

[Freddie Stubbs]

13. Well, at least he isn't bullshitting you with a noncomittal answer

[Cleita]

8. OMG! There is a God! Let's hope this isn't another bait and switch.

I'm holding my breathe and thanks for the heads up.

[clear eye]

11. Please let friends w/ Representatives w/ even the slightest chance of voting yes

know about this, today.

You've written that your Rep. is a lost cause, but you can still tell others.

They can't "bait & switch" on this. Either it gets its vote, or it doesn't. And Pelosi said she will allow it on the floor w/ a short, 20 minute debate, and an up or down vote. It will have to happen before tomorrow's vote on the whole bill.

[Cleita]

12. I'm calling Lois Capp's office, the rep in the next district, and emailing her

too. She's a Dem and a former nurse so I hope she's for real health care reform.

[GreenPartyVoter]

10. Called Rep. Michaud's local office.

[HughMoran]

14. Cool!

K&R - it will be interesting to see how the results of the vote!!

[John Q. Citizen]

15. Where can the bill be read?

[Aramchek]

16. when it doesn't pass, will the "Single Payer or Bust" crowd throw a collective hissy fit?

will they still work against the Public Option?

[Oregone]

18. "Single Payer or Bust"?

You mean "Real reform of Bust", right?

Those who are not in the "Any piece of shit at any cost crowd". Those excluded from the "Mandates or bust crowd".

[sarahlee]

21. ** AMENDMENT HAS BEEN WITHDRAWN!

Representative Weiner has withdrawn his amendment - it Will NOT be voted on. This is what Dennis Kucinich and John Conyers wanted.


Update here:
http://ourcommongood.blogspot.com/2009/11/anthony-weiner-withdraws-his-single.html

[Plucketeer]

23. I trust these reps to do what's in our best interests

I'm SICK to hear that there won't be a vote, but heartened also to hear that this is simply a tactical manuver out of respect for the current debate climate.

[Laelth]

24. Good.

It would have been useless to put it to a vote now.

It would have only provided ammo to the opponents of single-payer. They would have said, "See. Single payer is so bad that Nancy Pelosi couldn't even get it passed in the 'liberal' House of Representatives."

It would not have helped us.

The Kucinich Amendment, otoh, is essential, and if it's not in the final bill, the bill is not worth passing.

:dem:

-Laelth

[sarahlee]

26. Agree.

See this for pushing Kucinich Amendment:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/11/6/801346/-No-Vote-on-Single-Payer

[clear eye]

30. Now they say "See single payer advocates are so powerless

that they can't even get it to the floor for a vote."

Much better.

I trust the leaders of the single payer movement on this issue much more than I do any Congressperson.

[sarahlee]

27. More with Action needed today - Contact Rules Committee Members

http://ourcommongood.blogspot.com/2009/11/single-payer-updates-with-action-item.html