For Immediate Release

October 6, 2009

Contact: Mark Gallagher, 781-396-2900

http://markey.house.gov

Markey To Host Health Care Reform Town Hall Meeting This Monday

Medford, MA – U.S. Representative Edward J. Markey (D-Malden), a senior member of the Energy and Commerce Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives, today announced that he will host a health care reform town hall meeting this Monday evening in Arlington.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee is one of three committees with jurisdiction over health care policy. In the coming weeks, the House will consider landmark health care reform legislation.

“We are embarking on an historic debate on a long-overdue effort to reform our nation’s health care system,” said Markey. “It is important for me to present the case for this vital legislation to my constituents and listen to their thoughts and concerns as the House is preparing to vote.”

WHO:            Congressman Edward J. Markey (D-Malden)

WHAT:          Health Care Reform Town Hall

WHEN:          6:30 p.m. EST, Monday, October 12, 2009

WHERE:         Arlington Town Hall, 730 Massachusetts Avenue

Representative John Tierney has scheduled two upcoming town hall meetings in the North Shore, which will focus on health reform. Representative Tierney has been one of the champions on the House of single payer reform and a strong public option. If you live in his district, please attend these forums to support Rep Tierney, as across the country these town hall meetings have been extremely important expressions of public opinion, and have been hotly contested. Your vocal presence WILL make a difference.

Here are details on the North Shore meetings:

Saturday, October 10th, 10 am - 11:30 am, doors open at 9:30 am
Salem State, Main Stage Auditorium (seats 750 people)

Monday, October 12th, 7 pm - 8:30 pm, doors at 6:30 pm
North Shore Community College, DANVERS campus, Berry Building (seats 200 people)

Last night President Obama delivered a powerful speech on health reform to a joint session of Congress. The President was able to articulate the reasons so many of us put our time, our passion, and our heart into changing this health care system, which needlessly harms so many. We share the President’s vision, but we write to you with real concern about the road-map laid out in the President’s speech, as all too often in the United States our policy has proven inadequate to meet our ambitions.  Below: the good and the bad in President Obama’s address. (more…)

Representative Barney Frank, who has been a strong supporter of single payer reform and an active member of the Progressive Caucus in Congress, is holding a second town hall meeting in Wellesley this Saturday, September 12, 2PM at Mass Bay Community College. If you are from Rep Frank’s district or know someone who is, please attend this town hall meeting and thank the Representative for continuing to support single payer reform, and advancing the movement to make health care a right this Congressional session. Also, please ask Rep Frank if he will support the Weiner amendment, which would replace the current bill in the House with the single payer bill, and if he will support the Kucinich amendment, which would allow states like Massachusetts to experiment with single payer reform and receive necessary federal waivers.

(more…)

Labor Day comes every year, but the opportunity to cure our country’s ailing health care system comes once in a lifetime!

Join with more than 2,000 expected allies from across the state in a march and rally to show our support for real health care reform. Come out to help send our elected officials back to work in Washington D.C. with a message from the people of Massachusetts: we want health care that puts people before profits, and we want it now!

Monday, September 7th

11:00 A.M.

Rally at Boston Common

(near the Gazebo)

There are a couple of weeks left in the August recess, which is when Congress is out-of-session, and our Representatives and Senators return to their districts to speak with constituents. As you have probably heard by now, this has been an opportunity for groups trying to defeat health care reform to mobilize residents around town hall meetings, and to raise unfounded fears about government playing a role in our health care system. Mass-Care participated in an extremely effective counter-mobilization outside Congressman Tierney’s office in Peabody, where a large coalition of labor, community, health care, and faith organizations turned out 150 people to support Rep Tierney’s work backing single payer and a strong public option. (more…)

Ask Whole Foods to Support

Real Health Care Reform!!

Whole Foods Chief Executive John Mackey has declared that health-care is not a basic human right, and the privilege of being healthy is only for people who can afford it.

Join us this Friday August 21^st as we inform Whole Foods customers about the company’s efforts to stall real reform, and let Chief Executive John Mackey know that we will fight for everyone to have quality, affordable health care.

Friday August 21^st

Framingham

12pm - 2pm

Whole Foods

575 Worcester Rd

Cambridge

4:30pm – 5:30pm

Whole Foods

115 Prospect Street, Central Square

For more information, contact:

Framingham: Jim Carvalho, UFCW 1445

781.727.9036, jim_carvalho@yahoo.com

Cambridge: Jake Williams, Mass Jobs With Justice

860.281.9792, jake@massjwj.net

As you have probably heard, opponents of health reform have been disrupting town hall meetings with Congresspeople around the country, perpetuating sensational and inaccurate claims about the impacts of public health insurance. The groups behind this effort - largely bankrolled by the health care industry - have called for a rally outside of Representative John Tierney’s Peabody district office tomorrow, Thursday the 13th, at 1PM. (more…)

Yesterday the Boston Globe wrote a factually inaccurate editorial titled “Mass bashers take note: Health reform is working,” and we need you to write a letter to the editor asking the Globe to correct their mistake and take the sustainability of health reform seriously:

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2009/08/05/mass_bashers_take_note_health_reform_is_working/ (more…)

Click here to download this letter as a Word document.
Click here to view the current Democratic State Platform on the Mass Dems web-site.
Click here to download the current Democratic State Platform as a Word file.
Click here to download the newly proposed draft Platform as a Word file.

Email info@masscare.org with your name, city or town, and organizational affiliation to sign this letter.

Dear Massachusetts Democratic Party Delegates,

This year the Party’s Platform Committee has proposed a dramatic rewrite of the state Platform, eliminating almost all references to particular policies, replacing them instead with references to broad goals and values. We write to you as fellow delegates, as city and town committee activists, as members of advocacy organizations, and as concerned Democrats who are working to make these values a reality on the ground, to urge that you oppose watering down the platform at the upcoming State Convention.

The current Platform references support for existing and proposed policies that are deeply embedded in social movements. The proposed new Platform obliterates acknowledgement of the Party’s roots in these grassroots efforts, and instead enumerates a bland list of values and goals that would significantly erode its ability to connect with broader community movements, and even to distinguish the Democratic Platform from other parties -who share most of these broad end-goals, but interpret them differently.

For its stance on education, the newly proposed Platform eliminates reference to caps on charter schools, opposition to high-stakes testing, METCO funding and commitment to desegregation, and opposing the casualization of teaching through the growth of part-time and adjunct staff. Instead, it offers a bland paragraph supporting “high-quality educational opportunities” for everyone, and a list of broad goals to be supported such as closing achievement gaps and college affordability.

The new platform drops an entire section on housing that included support for portable, public housing subsidies, fair housing laws, and legislation that prevents red-lining. Virtually all that is left is a line that the Party will support “[a]ffordable housing and rental assistance.” For health care, the new draft removes single payer reform, a constitutional guarantee of access to health care, and safe provider staffing in favor of extremely broad goals such as high quality health care and “full implementation of health care reform.”

The word “immigrant” has been expunged from the newly proposed document, and along with it support for immigrants’ right to organize into unions, equal rights for undocumented workers, prevailing wage policies, indexing the minimum wage to inflation, and no public funds for union busting.  The new platform also drops any reference to national war spending, opposition to the Patriot Act, affirmative action, American Indian tribal sovereignty, stem-cell research and the embodiment of marriage equality in the constitution.

The Democratic Platform needs to stand for both principles and the programs that bring those principles to fruition.  If the Platform doesn’t support programs that delegates believe in, our legislators will not be held accountable to a Party base. Moreover, it is in the realm of real policy that the Party is able to connect with the broader social movements that have brought us our most human social and economic reforms and that will continue to move our history along the arc of humanity.