Blog Debate: "We Must Not Fail"

Editor's Note:  This is the fourth and final day of a blog debate about what approach we should take on health care reform in 2009 will be Dr. Don McCanne, a retired family physician now serving as Senior Health Policy Fellow for Physicians for a National Health Program, and Jason Rosenbaum, a writer and activist, and the Deputy Director of Online Campaigns for Health Care for America Now! Dr. McCanne will be presenting the "single-payer" point of view, and Mr. Rosenbaum will be presenting the "public competitor" point of view.  You can read the first day's exchange here, the second day's exhange here, and the third day's exchange here.

This is Jason Rosenbaum's response to the question:  How can we ensure that if we get a reform bill out of the Senate at all, that it achieves quality, affordable health care for all Americans?

Read Dr. Don McCanne's response

I'm heartened by Don's call to action. If you look back at the Clinton health care fight in the early '90s, we had the President, we had the Congress, but we didn't have the grassroots movement. And so, when the health insurance industry went on the attack, there was no voice pushing Congress and the President to follow through on their promises.

This time, it will be different.

Health Care for America Now has been years in the making. We've built our coalition and it now boasts over 800 national and local organizations, including most of the major unions, progressive think tanks, grassroots organizations like MoveOn.org, and community organizations like CCC, Acorn, and USAction. We have offices in 40 states with paid and volunteer organizers working every day to organize their communities in support of health care reform. We have been successful in our fundraising and will continue to be in the future, so we will have the money to counter opponents of reform wherever we must engage them. We have our people on Capitol Hill every day, talking with every member of Congress. To date, we've signed up 185 Members of Congress in support of our principles for health care reform, including 21 in the Senate. We are involved in ongoing discussions with the White House about health care reform, and we count President Obama and Vice-President Biden as supporters, as they both signed on to our principles during the campaign as Senators.

We are building the grassroots movement that we will need to pass health care reform.

Now, our work is far from finished. We will need many more supporters in Congress and many more grassroots voices if we are to make President Obama's health care plan a reality. As Don said:

Do we need more years or decades of activism? The action is taking place right now! Get out of your chair, and get on the horn. Start organizing immediately. Plan your community demonstrations. Set up the massive march on Washington. Flood your media with the information they need to let our leaders know that we’ve had enough of our sick health care system, and that we demand reform that takes care of patients without punishing them with debt.

Hey, you. Why are you still sitting there? You say that you’re emailing your activist friends to organize massive protests to take place within the next two weeks? That’s great. Sit there long enough to do that, but then get up and get going.

To be clear, if we do not build our movement large enough, health care reform will not happen.

We must demonize our opposition. And we must stand united for reform. We will need strong voices from the left (that's you, single-payer supporters) pushing for your preferred option. As I hope became clear during this "debate," single payer supporters and supporters of the President's plan have much more in common than many believe. We have a common enemy, and we can both agree that at the very least, for a health care reform bill to do any real good in this country, it must at least contain a strong public health insurance option so the American people have a true choice. Our opponents will try and play up our divisions to weaken our power. We must not let that happen.

We need this movement. That's how we will get 60 votes in the Senate. We will get the votes when it become crystal clear to Senators that America wants the President's health care reform plans, that they will be rewarded if they stand up for the American people on this issue, and that they will suffer the consequences if they water it down or kill it outright.

Reform will happen this year. We must not fail.

Next:

Read Dr. Don McCanne's rebuttal

(Photo credit:  healthcareforamericanow on Flickr.)