Join us in a new campaign to win Quality, Affordable, Healthcare for All Once again the stage is set for another monumental battle over the future of the American health care system. It will be the most significant domestic political battle since the passage of Medicare – affecting one sixth of the U.S. gross domestic product. Our organizations have come together to build a movement and mobilize the financial and organizational resources to reach our historic goal. Our task is to plan a strategy, create the political environment, and assemble the political and organizational resources that will overcome the formidable array of forces that will oppose fundamental change. Please join the campaign: We invite organizations who support our Statement of Common Purposes and our passion for winning health care justice in America to join our campaign. We are sending this invitation to organizations that represent numerous constituencies across America: community groups; unions; businesses; faith-based groups; health care providers; women; communities of color; seniors; people with disabilities; people with serious and chronic illness; advocacy and policy groups; students; political organizations; and all others who share are vision and values. All campaign members may participate in campaign activities and may join campaign Operating Committees (field; policy and legislation; communications; coalition building; development). Contact Melinda Gibson at info@healthcareforamericanow.org if you have questions about the campaign let Melinda know too, and one of the Organizing Committee members will get back to you. Thank you for joining us in the fight for Quality Affordable Health Care for All. Campaign Goal and Strategy Campaign Goal: To create a nationwide movement to win the implementation of health care reform that conforms to our principles, expressed in our Statement of Common Purpose. Our goal is to build a base of grassroots activism and a national movement at all levels of our democracy that will give powerful voice to the growing demand for action, advance our agenda for health care change, and answer those forces who argue that substantial governmental involvement is not necessary to guarantee quality affordable health care for all. Strategic Unity: The campaign will seek to build strategic unity among the broad array of forces that share the campaign’s goal. Strategic unity has three basic elements: 1) Working within a common frame and similar messages; 2) Implementing the basic elements of a common campaign plan; 3) Moving together, with urgency, along a similar time line. Strategic Building Blocks: 1. Build a base to reach beyond the base. The campaign will work with its members to educate an army of activists around the country who understand and are able to communicate about what we are working for in health care reform, what we are working to prevent and who will enlist their neighbors, co-workers, friends and family in the campaign. The campaign will activate our base by combining and creating a new synergy between traditional community and political organizing and the new modes of organizing we see through the Web and through movements that lead millions of people to wear plastic “live strong” bracelets. The campaign will build local and state coalitions that engage organizations and activists around the nation. 2. 360-degree communication. The campaign will implement a communications plan that fills the American public space with our message and messengers. The plan will be built on earned, new and paid media and will target local and national news and opinion, the new media of Internet, blogs and text messaging, paid advertising on the web, TV and print. 3. Policy and research: The campaign will develop research and policy capacities on multiple tracks to influence the larger national dialogue and media coverage, and to shape the content of any final reform. The campaign’s research will educate the public on the issues and will educate and cultivate opinion leaders and experts who can convey and credential our messages, principles, and ideas so that they have the broadest possible reach. We will develop detailed policy briefs on each element of our Statement of Common Purpose and use these briefs to evaluate and influence reform proposals. 4. Grassroots lobbying and civic engagement: The campaign will organize Americans to educate members of Congress about the campaign’s Statement of Common Purpose, demonstrating strong public support for policies that work to achieve quality, affordable health care for everyone in our nation. The campaign will do this on a bi-partisan basis, communicating with members of Congress across the nation, with the understanding that reform must have the broadest support. The campaign’s civic engagement activities will lift our message in the discourse leading up to the November 2008 election. 5. Development: The campaign’s fundraising plan aims at raising or leveraging tens of millions of dollars, prioritized through a detailed planning process that establishes tiers for each element of the campaign plan. Funds, both 501(c)3 and 501(c)4, will be raised from foundations, organizations and individuals, with plans for large donor fundraising and small donor through the web, house parties, events and other grassroots activities. Statement of Common Purpose We believe that all of us benefit from healthy communities, where we all have access to affordable, quality health care from a provider of our choice, at the time we need it, at a cost we can afford. Our mutual goal is affordable, quality health care for everyone in America and for our nation. Our current health care system in America is not affordable for families, businesses or government. We need an American solution to secure our families’ health and a healthy economy. All of us, individuals, employers and government have a shared responsibility to realize comprehensive reforms in our health care system. Our government’s responsibility is to guarantee quality affordable health care for everyone in America and it must play a central role in regulating, financing, and providing health coverage by establishing: A truly inclusive and accessible health care system in which no one is left out.
A choice of a private insurance plan, including keeping the insurance you have if you like it, or a public insurance plan without a private insurer middleman that guarantees affordable coverage.
A standard for health benefits that covers what people need to keep healthy and to be treated when they are ill. Health care benefits should cover all necessary care including preventative services and treatment needed by those with serious and chronic diseases and conditions.
Health care coverage with out-of-pocket costs including premiums, co-pays and deductibles that are based on a family’s ability to pay for health care and without limits on payments for covered services.
Equity in health care access, treatment, research and resources to people and communities of color, resulting in the elimination of racial disparities in health outcomes and real improvement in health and life expectancy for all.
Health coverage through the largest possible pools in order to achieve affordable, quality coverage for the entire population and to share risk fairly.
A watchdog role on all plans, to assure that risk is fairly spread among all health care payers and that insurers do not turn people away, raise rates or drop coverage based on a person’s health history or wrongly delay or deny care.
A choice of doctors, health providers and public and private plans, without gaps in coverage or access and a delivery system that meets the needs of at-risk populations.
Affordable and predictable health costs to businesses and employers. To the extent that employers contribute to the cost of health coverage, those payments should be related to employee wages rather than on a per-employee basis.
Effective cost controls that promote quality, lower administrative costs and long term financial sustainability, including: standard claims forms, secure electronic medical records, using the public’s purchasing power to instill greater reliance on evidence-based protocols and lower drug and device prices, better management and treatment of chronic diseases and a public role in deciding where money is invested in health care.
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