[Peace-discuss] Fw: Rep. Kucinich to vote 'yes' for Obamacare (Cleveland Plain Dealer; Kucinich's statement)

[unionyes]

President Obama personally lobbied for his vote Monday on a ride to Cleveland 
aboard Air Force One, and at a health care reform rally in Strongsville. 
Picketers descended on Kucinich's Lakewood office to register their displeasure 
with his announced opposition to the package slated for consideration this week. 


Obama finally was able to force Kucinich to support the bill by the above tactics, and I am certain there were even more threats made behind the scenes.

David J.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: David Sladky 
To: undisclosed-recipients: 
Sent: Wednesday, March 17, 2010 3:39 PM
Subject: Rep. Kucinich to vote 'yes' for Obamacare (Cleveland Plain Dealer; Kucinich's statement)








-----Original Message-----
From: Scott McLarty <scottmclarty at yahoo.com>
To: usgp-media at gp-us.org; dcsgp at yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wed, Mar 17, 2010 3:31 pm
Subject: [usgp-media] Rep. Kucinich to vote 'yes' for Obamacare (Cleveland Plain Dealer; Kucinich's statement)


Rep. Dennis Kucinich to Vote 'Yes' on Health Care

By Sabrina Eaton
The Cleveland Plain Dealer, March 17, 2010
http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2010/03/rep_dennis_kucinich_to_vote_xx.html
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/03/17-3


WASHINGTON, D.C. -- U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich waited until Democrats had won 
last November's health care reform vote before casting his ballot against it on 
the House of Representatives floor.

This time around -- pressured by everyone from President Obama to Moveon.org -- 
the Cleveland Democrat had no luxury to dawdle before taking a stance. He 
announced at a Capitol news conference this morning that he'll vote "yes" on the 
bill's latest draft.

"I have doubts about the bill," Kucinich said. "This is not the bill I wanted to 
support. . . However, after careful discussions with President Obama, Speaker 
Pelosi, my wife Elizabeth and close friends, I've decided to cast a vote in 
favor of the legislation."

Bill opponents pounced quickly. Said an e-mail alert from the National 
Republican Congressional Committee: "Left-wing icon flips from 'No,' exposes 
so-called moderates."

Kucinich's move came after months of insisting he'd oppose the bill because it 
doesn't do enough to curtail insurance company abuses. Kucinich advocates 
bolstering Medicare and expanding its coverage to include all Americans.

But he acknowledged this morning that his choice now is to either vote "no" on 
principle, and thereby possibly block the biggest (though imperfect) advance in 
health coverage in decades, or compromise for the good of the estimated 30 
million more Americans who could gain insurance.

"I have taken this fight further" than many other Congress members, Kucinich 
said, citing his two presidential campaigns in which he advocated universal 
coverage and his bill introduction and other attempts in the House to get 
single-payer insurance. 

He told reporters that if they want to see first-hand the tough economic and 
health-care choices that many Americans face, they should "come to the 10th 
District in Ohio and you'll understand."

Kucinich's field office on Cleveland's West Side routinely helps constituents 
with their social services needs, and that includes dealing with insurance 
matters, he said. He cited his own impoverished childhood, saying, "I grew up 
understanding what it meant to struggling families who did not get adequate 
care."

"I understand the connection between poverty and poor health care," he said.

As an adult, he has struggled with Crohn's Disease, and although he follows an 
alternative diet as one way of dealing with it, he also has had "access to the 
best" health care around. 

"I know I have to make a decision, not on the bill as I would like to see it, 
but as it is," Kucinich said. 

His recent criticism of the bill included a column he authored for last Sunday's 
Plain Dealer, in which he wrote: 

"Even with the few modest improvements in the bill, the insurance companies will 
still have dozens of loopholes to deny care and continue to find ways to leave 
Americans with the unpayable bill."

But Democrats are struggling to round up the 216 votes they need to pass the 
bill amid heavy lobbying from its opponents and its supporters, and Kucinich''s 
arms were twisted.

President Obama personally lobbied for his vote Monday on a ride to Cleveland 
aboard Air Force One, and at a health care reform rally in Strongsville. 
Picketers descended on Kucinich's Lakewood office to register their displeasure 
with his announced opposition to the package slated for consideration this week. 


© 2010 Cleveland Live, Inc.


*  *  *  *  *


Why I'm Voting 'Yes'

By Dennis Kucinich
CommonDreams.org, March 17, 2010 by 
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/03/17-9


The following are the prepared remarks offered by US Rep. Kucinich today 
regarding his plans for the upcoming health care vote:

Each generation has had to take up the question of how to provide for the health 
of the people of our nation. And each generation has grappled with difficult 
questions of how to meet the needs of our people. I believe health care is a 
civil right. Each time as a nation we have reached to expand our basic rights, 
we have witnessed a slow and painful unfolding of a democratic pageant of 
striving, of resistance, of breakthroughs, of opposition, of unrelenting efforts 
and of eventual triumph.
I have spent my life struggling for the rights of working class people and for 
health care. I grew up understanding first hand what it meant for families who 
did not get access to needed care. I lived in 21 different places by the time I 
was 17, including in a couple of cars. I understand the connection between 
poverty and poor health care, the deeper meaning of what Native Americans have 
called "hole in the body, hole in the spirit". I struggled with Crohn's disease 
much of my adult life, to discover sixteen years ago a near-cure in alternative 
medicine and following a plant-based diet. I have learned with difficulty the 
benefits of taking charge personally of my own health care. On those few 
occasions when I have needed it, I have had access to the best allopathic 
practitioners. As a result I have received the blessings of vitality and high 
energy. Health and health care is personal for each one of us. As a former 
surgical technician I know that there
 are many people who dedicate their lives to helping others improve theirs. I 
also know their struggles with an insufficient health care system.

There are some who believe that health care is a privilege based on ability to 
pay. This is the model President Obama is dealing with, attempting to open up 
health care to another 30 million people, within the context of the for-profit 
insurance system. There are others who believe that health care is a basic right 
and ought to be provided through a not-for-profit plan. This is what I have 
tirelessly advocated.

I have carried the banner of national health care in two presidential campaigns, 
in party platform meetings, and as co-author of HR676, Medicare for All. I have 
worked to expand the health care debate beyond the current for-profit system, to 
include a public option and an amendment to free the states to pursue single 
payer. The first version of the health care bill, while badly flawed, contained 
provisions which I believed made the bill worth supporting in committee. The 
provisions were taken out of the bill after it passed committee. 

I joined with the Progressive Caucus saying that I would not support the bill 
unless it had a strong public option and unless it protected the right of people 
to pursue single payer at a state level. It did not. I kept my pledge and voted 
against the bill. I have continued to oppose it while trying to get the 
provisions back into the bill. Some have speculated I may be in a position of 
casting the deciding vote. The President's visit to my district on Monday 
underscored the urgency of this moment.

I have taken this fight farther than many in Congress cared to carry it because 
I know what my constituents experience on a daily basis. Come to my district in 
Cleveland and you will understand.

The people of Ohio's 10th district have been hard hit by an economy where wealth 
has accelerated upwards through plant closings, massive unemployment, small 
business failings, lack of access to credit, foreclosures and the high cost of 
health care and limited access to care. I take my responsibilities to the people 
of my district personally. The focus of my district office is constituent 
service, which more often then not involves social work to help people survive 
economic perils. It also involves intervening with insurance companies.

In the past week it has become clear that the vote on the final health care bill 
will be very close. I take this vote with the utmost seriousness. I am quite 
aware of the historic fight that has lasted the better part of the last century 
to bring America in line with other modern democracies in providing single payer 
health care. I have seen the political pressure and the financial pressure being 
asserted to prevent a minimal recognition of this right, even within the context 
of a system dominated by private insurance companies. 

I know I have to make a decision, not on the bill as I would like to see it, but 
the bill as it is. My criticisms of the legislation have been well reported. I 
do not retract them. I incorporate them in this statement. They still stand as 
legitimate and cautionary. I still have doubts about the bill. I do not think it 
is a first step toward anything I have supported in the past. This is not the 
bill I wanted to support, even as I continue efforts until the last minute to 
modify the bill.

However after careful discussions with the President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, 
Elizabeth my wife and close friends, I have decided to cast a vote in favor of 
the legislation. If my vote is to be counted, let it now count for passage of 
the bill, hopefully in the direction of comprehensive health care reform. We 
must include coverage for those excluded from this bill. We must free the 
states. We must have control over private insurance companies and the cost their 
very existence imposes on American families. We must strive to provide a 
significant place for alternative and complementary medicine, religious health 
science practice, and the personal responsibility aspects of health care which 
include diet, nutrition, and exercise.

The health care debate has been severely hampered by fear, myths, and by 
hyper-partisanship. The President clearly does not advocate socialism or a 
government takeover of health care. The fear that this legislation has 
engendered has deep roots, not in foreign ideology but in a lack of confidence, 
a timidity, mistrust and fear which post 911 America has been unable to shake. 

This fear has so infected our politics, our economics and our international 
relations that as a nation we are losing sight of the expanded vision, the 
electrifying potential we caught a glimpse of with the election of Barack Obama. 
The transformational potential of his presidency, and of ourselves, can still be 
courageously summoned in ways that will reconnect America to our hopes for 
expanded opportunities for jobs, housing, education, peace, and yes, health 
care. 

I want to thank those who have supported me personally and politically as I have 
struggled with this decision. I ask for your continued support in our ongoing 
efforts to bring about meaningful change. As this bill passes I will renew my 
efforts to help those state organizations which are aimed at stirring a single 
payer movement which eliminates the predatory role of private insurers who make 
money not providing health care. I have taken a detour through supporting this 
bill, but I know the destination I will continue to lead, for as long as it 
takes, whatever it takes to an America where health care will be firmly 
established as a civil right.


Rep. Dennis Kucinich is a Democratic Congressman from Ohio.


      
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