[Peace-discuss] Fw: [cchcc-l] What's going on with health reform? An overview.

[Jenifer Cartwright]

Fyi... --Jenifer

--- On Wed, 2/10/10, Allison Jones <allison at healthcareconsumers.org> wrote:

From: Allison Jones <allison at healthcareconsumers.org>
Subject: [cchcc-l] What's going on with health reform? An overview.
To: cchcc-l at lists.shout.net
Date: Wednesday, February 10, 2010, 9:48 AM

Dear Friends,

Staff of the Champaign County Health Care Consumers (CCHCC) attended a
national health advocacy conference in Washington, DC at the end of January,
where we learned a lot about health reform. I want to share with you the
most important things that we learned.

Below is a VERY brief overview of the information I would like to share with
you. Over the next few days, I will be sending you additional messages that
provide more information on each of the points outlined below. But I thought
I would start with just a brief, simple overview. I know some of you will
have lots of questions, and I hope our subsequent e-mails will help answer
some of those questions.

Here is a very brief overview of what CCHCC learned in Washington, DC:

1. The Massachusetts special Senate election did change the legislative
landscape for health reform - it would now be near impossible, given the
political dynamics, to pass another health reform bill through the Senate,
because the 60 vote filibuster-proof Democratic majority is gone.
Reconciling the House and Senate bills and getting that reconciled version
through both chambers is not a political possibility. A new strategy is
needed.

2. The President and leaders in Congress understand that doing nothing is
NOT an option. Your advocacy efforts ARE working!

3. Legislatively, the best way forward is to have the House pass the Senate
version of health reform, PLUS have both chambers pass budget reconciliation
legislation, in which some "fixes" would be made to the Senate bill.

4. The budget reconciliation process is nothing new or unusual, and is a
perfectly appropriate way of making changes to the Senate health bill.

5. The Senate bill has many VERY good provisions that would go into effect
THIS YEAR and would help millions of Americans and thousands of CCHCC's
constituents. Some of these provisions may surprise you (they surprised me!
We've been so focused on witnessing the ugly legislative process and all the
compromises made along the way, that it's been hard to focus on positive
developments).

6. Stay tuned for action alerts calling on you to contact legislators to
tell them that "doing nothing is not an option. Pass the Senate bill plus
budget reconciliation and make health reform a reality!"

Stay tuned for more messages where I will provide more details about the
items above, and look for opportunities to take action!

I hope this message gives you a sense of how we can move forward on national
health reform.

Let me take this opportunity to thank you for your ongoing support, and to
let you know that I truly believe that, with all of us staying active, we
can make health reform happen this year!

Best wishes and thank you,
Claudia Lennhoff, CCHCC Executive Director

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Champaign County Health Care Consumers
44 E. Main Street  Suite 208
Champaign, IL 61820
 
Phone: (217) 352-6533
Fax:   (217) 352-9745 
E-mail: cchcc at healthcareconsumers.org
Web:    www.healthcareconsumers.org
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Support health care justice - donate to CCHCC today! Visit our website to make a tax-deductible contribution today. 
http://www.healthcareconsumers.org/index.php?action=Donation
_______________________________________________
To manage your subscription to the CCHCC email list, please click the link below.
cchcc-l mailing list
cchcc-l at lists.shout.net
http://lists.shout.net/mailman/listinfo/cchcc-l



      
-- 
This message has been scanned for viruses and
dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
believed to be clean.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/attachments/20100210/f1ed62d6/attachment.html>