Reform Party Defends Health Care is a Human Right

[Guest PDA]

Who: Constituents led by Progressive Democrats of America (PDA), National Nurses United (NNU), Democrats.com, U.S. Labor Against the War (USLAW), the New Priorities Network, Labor Campaign for Single Payer Healthcare, and Healthcare NOW!

 

What: Brown Bag Lunch Vigils (BBLVs) demanding elected officials support legislation to create jobs, provide healthcare for all, guarantee political rights for people--not corporations--and end the war in Afghanistan.

 

Where: District offices of Senators and Representative across the USA. Complete list of Vigils: http://www.pdacommun...=216&Itemid=226

 

When: Noon-time Wednesday, February 15th.

 

Contacts: PDA National Director Tim Carpenter tim@pdamerica.org413-320-2015

 

PDA Deputy Field Director Andrea Miller andrea@pdamerica.org443-878-2071

 

Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) and its partners continue their Brown Bag Lunch Vigil (BBLV) campaign noon-time Wednesday, February 15th. This effort--launched two years ago--brings activists to district offices of Senators and Representatives to demand action on key legislation.

 

This month, BBLVs will urge elected officials to support:

• HR 780 - Rep. Barbara Lee’s bill to fund the safe and orderly withdrawal armed forces and defense contractor personnel from Afghanistan.

• HR 676 - Rep. John Conyers’s bill to establish an improved and expanded Medicare for All program.

• HR 1200 - Rep. Jim McDermott’s American Health Security Act of 2011 to deliver universal health care coverage by incorporating Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program and TRICARE (the Department of Defense health care program).

• HR 870 - Rep. Conyers’s “21st Century Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment and Training Act” which would establish the National Full Employment Trust Fund to ensure than anyone who is able and willing to work can get a job.

• H.R. 2914 - Rep. Jan Schakowsky’s “Emergency Jobs to Restore the American Dream Act” to fund 2,242,000 positions during fiscal years 2012 and 2013.

• H.J. Res 88 - Rep. Jim McGovern’s constitutional amendment to overturn the US Supreme

Court’s Citizens United v. FEC

ruling and to make clear that corporations do not have the rights the U.S. Constitution guarantees to human beings.

 

Partners in this effort include: National Nurses United, Democrats.com, U.S. Labor Against the War (USLAW), the New Priorities Network, Labor Campaign for Single Payer Healthcare, and Healthcare NOW!

 

PDA National Director Tim Carpenter said, "In 2008 PDA pledged to hold then-candidate Barack Obama's feet to the fire, and we have. PDA and our partners launched the Brown Bag Lunch Vigil movement two years ago--before the tea party, and before the Occupy movement, building on our Healthcare NOT Warfare campaign. These vigils bring our message to members of Congress, demanding prosperity through peace and conversion of war spending to meet human needs."

 

Progressive Democrats of America was founded in 2004 to reform the Democratic Party and restore its focus on first principles including social and economic justice, environmental protection, ending corporate rule, promoting fair and transparent elections, fair--not "free"--trade, and ending wars and occupations. PDA strives to rebuild the Democratic Party from the bottom up--from every congressional district to statewide party structures to the corridors of power in Washington, where we work arm in arm with the Congressional Progressive Caucus. In just seven years, PDA and its allies have shaken up the political status quo.