[Peace-discuss] Fwd: [Peace] March 22 Town Hall Meeting on Health Care: "What is Your Health Worth? A National Conversation on Health Care"

[John W.]

Just thought you might find this pertinent, Claudia.  The emphasis, in the 
passages that are in bold and underlined, is mine.

John Wason



Excerpt from Defending the Spirit: A Black Life in America by Randall 
Robinson, 1998


             "Which brings us to the sine qua non for effective 
outside-the-Policy-House advocacy: a gift for self-promotion, a gift used 
or, more appropriately, misused to its fullest by those self-seeking souls 
unburdened by any restraint of shame.  This is not to disparage 
self-promotion, especially when it is an inadvertent by-product of a public 
effort to alter wrongheaded public policy.  We have seat belts in our cars, 
and consumer safety standards generally, because of the public advocacy of 
Ralph Nader, whose formidable public stature has carried in its trail a 
salutary and major public policy influence.
             My academic friends and the foundations that fund their 
painstaking research appear to understand none of this.  For forty years of 
apartheid, the tenured opponents of that system won grants, did research, 
wrote monographs and books, gave testimony ad nauseam before Congress.  All 
to no effect.  American policy toward South Africa had been and remained 
one of de facto public and private embrace.  Few if any members of Congress 
felt compelled to read or listen to anything the academic community had to 
say.  Only when a campaign of massive civil disobedience was packaged for 
public participation in late 1984 did American policy begin to turn around.
             This is not the preferred way to make or influence foreign 
policy.  But in America, if you are outside the Policy House, a position to 
which virtually all blacks have been relegated, it is the only way to have 
impact.  We have won most of the battles in which I have fought.  But the 
price has been dear and I am tired and diminished by the process.  In all 
the years of meeting with presidents, secretaries of state, national 
security advisors, U.S. trade representatives, and members of Congress, I 
cannot recall a single change of policy course that resulted from any of 
the hundreds of discussions, the thousands of letters, the scores of 
presentations to perfunctory nods and courteous closings.  Like water off a 
duck's back.  It never ever meant a damn thing."

Pages 244-45



> > ** PLEASE FORWARD**
>
> > Dear Friends,
>
> > Champaign County Health Care Consumers invites you to attend this important
> > Town Hall meeting on Health Care on Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. on the U of I
> > campus at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (see details
> > below).
> >
> > This meeting is part of a national series of meetings for the public to 
> have
> > dialogue on our nation's health care.  The meeting will be interactive and
> > will feature a local panel, including Claudia Lennhoff, CCHCC Executive
> > Director.  The meeting is intended to get your input on the following
> > questions:
> >
> > - What health care benefits and services should be provided?
> >
> > - How does the American public want health care delivered?
> >
> > - How should health care coverage be financed?
> >
> > - What tradeoffs are the American public willing to make in either benefits
> > or financing to ensure access to affordable, high quality health care
> > coverage and services?
> >
> > CCHCC believes that health care is a basic human right and that all people
> > should have access to quality affordable health care, including physical,
> > oral, and mental health, as well as affordable access to prescription drugs
> > and durable medical equipment.
> >
> > Please join us for this important meeting!
> >
> > If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Claudia Lennhoff at
> > 217/352-6533 or claudia at shout.net.
> >
> > Sincerely,
> >
> > Claudia Lennhoff
> > CCHCC Executive Director
> >
> > *****************************
> >
> > "What is Your Health Worth?  A National Conversation on Health Care"
> >
> > Wednesday, March 22, 2006
> > 5:30pm-8:30pm CST, Live Webcast from 6-8 pm
> >
> > On Wednesday, March 22, UIUC will be hosting a live local Webcast on health
> > care reform.  This special program is produced by The Citizens' Health Care
> > Working Group* and is being broadcast from the University of Michigan with
> > co-sponsorship by the Big Ten Conference and The Association of Schools of
> > Public Health.  Funded by Congress, recommendations generated through a
> > series of town hall meetings will be considered by Congress and the White
> > House in health care reform decisions.
> >
> > The primary goal of the Working Group is to engage the public in an 
> informed
> > dialogue on the health care system in America. UIUC is one of 22 partner
> > institutions that will be hosting local audiences and joining the Webcast
> > via satellite.  We are especially interested in having members of the
> > Champaign-Urbana community attend and offer their thoughts and opinions
> > about the current state of the health care system. A panel of Faculty,
> > Students and Community Members will lead discussions before and after the
> > live Webcast.
> >
> > Location:
> >
> > National Center for Supercomputing Applications
> > On the U of I Campus
> > 1205 W. Clark St.
> > Auditorium - rm. 1122
> > Urbana, IL 61801
> >
> > Parking is available in the garage at the corner of University & Goodwin
> > Aves in Urbana.
> >
> > This event is open to the public. Please plan to attend this unique
> > opportunity to participate in the national dialogue on health care reform.
> >
> > * The Citizens' Health Care Working Group, a nonpartisan group 
> authorized by
> > the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003,
> > is charged with listening to the views of the American people and 
> developing
> > recommendations for the President and Congress to provide U.S. citizens 
> with
> > "Health Care that Works for All Americans." The Health Report to the
> > American People was released in October 2005
> > (http://www.citizenshealthcare.gov/healthreport/healthreport.php)
> > and serves > as a basis to engage the American people in a dialogue on 
> health care
> > access, cost and quality issues.  The Working Group consists of 15 members
> > --14 citizens of diverse backgrounds from across the country, and the
> > Secretary of Health and Human Services.
> >
> > For more information, please contact Chris Erb 
> (<mailto:cerb at uiuc.edu>cerb at uiuc.edu) or Cindy
> > Elkins (deye at uiuc.edu) at 244-0222, or visit the following Websites:
> >
> > http://www.citizenshealthcare.gov/ and www.umich.edu/healthmeeting
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