and push hard. Medicare for all.

If as being reported the White House is going to abandon their attempts to get some republican votes. Now is the time for those of us who believe that a single payer system is what we should have been debating all along, to push it.

It is not only good policy it is good politics.

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Cross posted from The People's View.

I have been following the national health care debate closely. Well, only some of it is debate. A good chunk of it seems to be angry mobs manipulated by a disinformation campaign by the right wing and its health insurance company allies, and people on Medicare yelling taking offense at government run health care. I have to be straight with myself. I have been of the mind that while I personally support a single payer health care system (or better-put, Medicare for All), it is not possible to pass such legislation in the current political climate, so we have to settle for a compromise known as the public option - one that allows any American to buy into a government-run insurance option. But I have been somewhat disillusioned. The fervor and nastiness with which the insurance companies and the political right is fighting giving Americans that choice has made me think twice. Perhaps we should have pushed for a single payer system to begin with, since the moneyed interests have no intention to compromise whatsoever. Their goal is to kill any and all health care reform legislation. Heaven forbid the average health insurance company CEO salary be less than $15 million yearly.

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Today's meeting of the nation's leading single payer activists with Sen. Max Baucus was historic, and a recognition of the power of the tens of thousands of nurses, doctors, and grassroots activists across the country who have been turning up the heat on the policy makers in Washington.

Make no mistake - your voices are being heard. And, the protests and pressure will continue.

As Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, told Baucus, "there is a groundswell" across the country that will continue to press for single payer reform, and Baucus and other policy makers in Washington "are going to get to know us very well." In a later press conference, DeMoro blasted the conventional wisdom that single payer is not politically viable. "Is it politically viable to let people die and suffer from a lack of political will?" Noting the fight for women's suffrage and the civil rights movement, she emphasized, "we're going to have to turn up the heat. Women did not get the right to vote by voting on it."

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Tuesday, May 12, is Florence Nightingale Day--and the chance to honor our first nurse with a "revolt of the nurses and doctors" protest against Sen. Max Baucus and the health insurance corporations   who are doing their best to undermine healthcare reform, this time by excluding all mention of single-payer healthcare reforms from the Senate Finance debate over healthcare financing.

We urge all nurses and doctors and patients who are in the Washington D.C. area to join the Florence Nightingale Day protests this Tuesday from 10 a.m. to 12 noon right outside the Dirksen Senate Office Building, at 1st St. and Constitution Ave., right near Union Station in Washington, D.C.  (Caregivers, wear your scrubs!)

If you can't make it, you can join in: Fax Max Baucus (and other Congressional Committee chairs) to demand single-payer have a place at the table, and a voice in the debates.

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"Obama...Wants to Steal My Big-Screen TV"

During this incredible election, we have seen the nasty and toxic side of the American character forced to the surface.

It has rarely been worse than the words uttered just this morning at a "Stop Obama" rally perpetuated by one Mark Phillips, a conservative activist and sometime Fox News commentator.

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