Tricounty DFA Update: Governor Dean At Union College April 13 & Meeting Report.
Hello Everyone;

Governor Dean At Union!

A special report: DFA founder Governor Howard Dean will be speaking at the Memorial Chapel of Union College in Schnectady, NY on Monday, April 13th at 7pm. Doors open at six. Space is limited and preference will be given to members of the campus community. For more details check out the Union webpage at: http://www.union.edu/N/DS/s.php?s=8325

If anyone is interested in carpooling down as a DFA group, let me know and we'll see what we can put together.

Meeting Report

Also, briefly, we had a good monthly meeting last night at the Rockhill Cafe. We discussed politics (of course!) but also DFA's new healthcare initiative now being led by Dr. Dean.

One of the things we discussed was this article from Wednesday New York Times, which describes what is probably the biggest danger posed to healthcare reform: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/01/us/politics/01health.html?hpw

Governor Dean has identified what's called "opt-in" as the make or break point for healthcare reform. If we can't opt-in to a public program like Medicare, we don't have reform.

But what's being proposed is a so-called compromise wherein, as the article describes it,
"Congress would authorize a new government-run insurance program, but it would come into existence only if certain conditions were met — if, for example, private insurers failed to rein in health costs by a certain amount after several years."

That would firstly, give private insurers breathing room to keep fighting reform. Secondly, they would just keep moving the goal posts, redefining or watering down the standards. What is enough reduction? Who would get to say that? This compromise is merely a strategy to kill opt-in. Costs would not come down significantly and we would not get reform.

We also discussed some actions, and we'll be letting you know about that soon. In the meanwhile, make sure you sign Governor Dean's petition for healthcare reform at: http://www.standwithdrdean.com

Thanks everyone!

Larry

Labels: Democracy For America, Democracy For The Greater Glens Falls Area, DFA, Glens Falls, healthcare reform, Howard Dean, Rockhill Bakehouse Cafe, Union College

- posted by Larry Dudley @ 11:17 PM