On Friday afternoon, the White House announced via Twitter that the President will be holding a prime time press conference this Wednesday at 9:00 PM Eastern.
From OFA Director Mitch Stewart:
Organizing for America volunteers have done amazing work over the last couple weeks — and the pressure is working. Congress is moving rapidly toward finalizing health care reform legislation, with crucial votes expected in both the House and the Senate within days. With so much at stake — and the D.C. lobbyists going into overdrive — we have to take our grassroots campaign to the next level.
So we’re announcing the Health Care Reform Week of Action. All this week, OFA volunteers like you will be knocking on doors, making calls to neighbors, and attending public events to build the local support for health care reform we need to pass a strong final bill. If you can spare an hour or two for health care reform, this is the week to do it.
Find and sign up for a Health Care Reform Week of Action event near you.
Things are moving quickly in Washington. Key committees in both the House and Senate have passed early versions of the bill that reflect the President’s principles for real health care reform. We’re making progress in large part because legislators are hearing from Americans who have waited far too long for reform.
But the opposition also knows how crucial this week is. That’s why they’re spending as much as $1.4 million every single day sending high-powered lobbyists around D.C. to hold back reform. Our best weapon against these insider tactics is publicly demonstrating support back home — exactly what this week’s actions are designed to do.
So please join us for the Health Care Reform Week of Action. As we get closer to final votes in Washington, we need to keep pounding the pavement, hitting the phones, and reaching out to the public every way we can.
Find and RSVP for an event near you at.
Hope to see you out there,
Mitch
Mitch Stewart
Director
Organizing for America
Now, we’ve talked this problem to death, year after year. But unless we act — and act now — none of this will change. Just a quick statistic I heard about this hospital: Just a few years ago, there were approximately 50,000 people coming into the emergency room. Now they’ve got 85,000. There’s been almost a doubling of emergency room care in a relatively short span of time, which is putting enormous strains on the system as a whole. That’s the status quo, and it’s only going to get worse.
If we do nothing, then families will spend more and more of their income for less and less care. The number of people who lose their insurance because they’ve lost or changed jobs will continue to grow. More children will be denied coverage on account of asthma or a heart condition. Jobs will be lost, take-home pay will be lower, businesses will shutter, and we will continue to waste hundreds of billions of dollars on insurance company boondoggles and inefficiencies that add to our financial burdens without making us any healthier.
So the need for reform is urgent and it is indisputable. No one denies that we’re on an unsustainable path. We all know there are more efficient ways of doing it. We just — I spoke to the chief information officer here at the hospital and he talked about some wonderful ways in which we could potentially gather up electronic medical records and information for every child not just that comes to this hospital but in the entire region, and how much money could be saved and how the health of these kids could be improved. But it requires an investment.
Now, there are some in this town who are content to perpetuate the status quo, are in fact fighting reform on behalf of powerful special interests. There are others who recognize the problem, but believe — or perhaps, hope — that we can put off the hard work of insurance reform for another day, another year, another decade.
… We can’t afford the politics of delay and defeat when it comes to health care. Not this time. Not now.
… Now, we always knew that passing health care reform wouldn’t be easy. We always knew that doing what is right would be hard. There’s just a tendency towards inertia in this town. I understand that as well as anybody. But we’re a country that chooses the harder right over the easier wrong. That’s what we have to do this time. We have to do that once more.
Read the President’s full remarks . . .
From OFA Director Mitch Stewart:
Last week, Republican Senator Jim DeMint made it pretty clear why the opponents of health care reform are fighting so hard. As he told a special interest attack group, "If we’re able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him." Here’s how the President responded:
Think about that. This isn’t about me. This isn’t about politics. This is about a health care system that is breaking America’s families, breaking America’s businesses and breaking America’s economy. And we can’t afford the politics of delay and defeat when it comes to health care. Not this time, not now. There are too many lives and livelihoods at stake.
With Congress only days away from finalizing their plans for reform, it’s time to stand up with the President and fight back against this disastrous brand of old-style politics. So we need as many people as possible to publicly support the President’s principles for health care reform and call on Congress to act.
Before the first full votes in Congress, we’ll publish the signatures in newspaper ads across the nation, to make sure your voice is heard.
Watch President Obama’s full response, then add your name in support of reform. Or if you’ve already signed, please forward this message to every one of your friends and neighbors so they can join you.
The President is more dedicated than ever to passing health care reform that satisfies the three requirements he’s been talking about for months: Health care reform must reduce costs, guarantee choice — including the choice of a strong public insurance option — and ensure all Americans have quality, affordable health care.
If we do not reform our broken health care system this year, we will only shackle future generations with spiraling costs and deteriorating care. The cost of inaction is simply more than this country can afford.
But the special interests who profit from the status quo won’t go down without a fight. The ads, the smears, and the attacks — targeting both President Obama and members of Congress who support reform — will only get worse. So it’s crucial that we show huge backing before Congress finalizes their plans this month.
Stand with President Obama on health care reform.
Thanks for standing up for change.
Thanks,
Mitch
Mitch Stewart
Director
Organizing for America
President Obama is scheduled to hold a press conference at the White House tonight, starting at 8:00 PM Eastern. Earlier today the President sent out an email encouraging Americans to tune in, explaining that:
As you read this, we are closer than ever to passing comprehensive health insurance reform that benefits American families and small businesses. Despite all the back and forth in the news right now, it is important to understand just how far we’ve come in this challenging process.
That’s why I’m holding a press conference tonight at 8pm ET, and writing to let everyone know where we are, what’s ahead, and why health insurance reform is so important.
… I realize that the last few miles of any race are the hardest to run, but we can’t stop now. There’s no dispute about it: we cannot control our long-term fiscal health as a nation without health insurance reform. American families and small businesses understand that the health insurance status quo is taking away those things that they value most about health care. The stability and security that comes with knowing that you can get the treatment you need, when you need it. Without reform, we are consigning our children to a future of skyrocketing premiums and crushing deficits.
We have to seize this opportunity and pass health insurance reform this year.
You can watch a live stream of the press conference below, starting at 8:00 PM Eastern.
UPDATE (Thursday AM): The event has ended, but we’ll have more from last night’s press conference later today.
We’ve hit the midway point in OFA’s Health Care Week of Action: a coordinated effort from Monday, July 20th to Monday, July 27th during which OFA’s supporters and volunteers are participating in thousands of events in all 50 states — including door-to-door canvasses, phone banks, roundtables and community gatherings – to build grassroots support for reform and show their representatives that there is broad desire for Congress to take action on health care in their communities.
Over the last 10 days in Ohio, OFA has held over 150 neighbor-to-neighbor events. Elected officials including Mayor Rhine Mclin in Dayton and Mayor Jay Williams in Youngstown are working with OFA to urge Congress to pass health care reform this year.
In advance of the President’s visit to Shaker Heights, OH today (for a health care town hall), OFA held a press conference call yesterday. Ohio State Director Greg Schultz joined U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Christina Barke, a nurse at Lorain’s Community Health Partners Regional Medical Center, and Elizabeth Lessner, a small business owner in Columbus, to talk about the urgent need for reform and the grassroots effort underway to make it happen this year.
You can listen to the full audio here, and the Middletown Journal did a nice round up of the call. A few highlights below:
U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH):
“If Americans like the plan they’re in, they can keep it. If they don’t like their plan, or if they’re uninsured or have inadequate insurance, they’ll have new choices including a public health insurance option that will compete on a level playing field with private plans and will keep those private insurers honest.”
Elizabeth Lessner, Small Business Owner and Resident of Columbus, OH:
“My problem right now is the increase in cost. I am just going through an insurance renewal now. My health insurance went up 40 percent. That’s something that, in these economic times, I can’t afford. I have to make some tough choices.”
Christina Barker, Community Health Partners Regional Medical Center in Lorain, OH:
“[Patients] can’t afford the medications we fix them. We get them on a medication regiment, they get home, they don’t have the means to provide for their medication – it’s food and their rent, or their medication. And what, in turn, happens to them is they end up back in the hospital very quickly. Probably within a day or two. Most of them are back in the same boat they were in a few days ago when we fixed them the last time.”
President Obama is in Cleveland, Ohio, were he will be holding a Town Hall on Health Insurance Reform starting at 2:10 PM Eastern. You can listen to a live audio feed from the event below:
UPDATED: The event has ended, but we’ll have more from today’s Town Hall soon.
From OFA Director Mitch Stewart:
Last week, Republican Senator Jim DeMint tried to rally our opposition by declaring that stopping reform would "break" President Obama. Instead, hundreds of thousands of you rushed forward to stand up for enacting health insurance reform this year.
Then last night, the President delivered a powerful prime-time address about why further delay is simply not an option, and even more support came pouring in. (Watch the highlights here).
Now, we’re on the brink of a major milestone in building this campaign: One million Americans publicly declaring their support for the President’s three core principles for health insurance reform this year.
Our goal is to reach the one million mark before Congress casts the first crucial votes as early as next week. This is just a first step of many we’ll take together. But it will send a clear message that the American people will not stand for playing partisan politics with our lives and livelihoods — and that we won’t settle for anything less than the real health insurance reform America so desperately needs this year.
Adding your name right now will have real impact. Not only will you help us hit this key milestone, but we’ll run the signatures we collect in local and national newspaper ads and present them in powerful displays at high-profile local events across the country in the crucial days and weeks to come.
We’re so close to a million because volunteers all over the country are reaching out online, door-to-door, on the phone and at public events in their community. And every time a new supporter stands up with the President, they in turn reach out to others and the movement grows.
Less than three months ago, OFA launched our campaign for health insurance reform. In that short time, hundreds of thousands of Americans have joined in by:
- sharing a personal health care story
- calling their representatives
- going door-to-door talking with their neighbors
- calling neighbors in all 50 states
- publishing letters to the editor in local newspapers
- donating
- hosting or attending a local event, and much more.
For Republican leaders and special interests, the health insurance debate may be a political game. But for millions of American businesses and families, the cost of inaction is economic ruin and deteriorating care for the ones we love. Out-of-control health care costs are breaking the budgets of families, businesses and government — and every day that Congress refuses to act, 14,000 Americans lose their coverage entirely.
We’re working so hard in every part of this country because we understand — this is no game. Add your name to help us reach one million public supporters this week, and join in this effort to reform health insurance in 2009.
Thank you,
Mitch
Mitch Stewart
Director
Organizing for America
In case you missed it, here is the full video of the President’s prime time press conference from Wednesday night:
- September 2009 (86)
