Health Care Reform needs another push-- and another.

This week in March, Americans note that federal health care reform has been in the works for a whole year.
Bills have been written and amended; support has been promised and at times withdrawn.
As time went on, progressives pushed again and again for a strong single-payer health care system to emerge from federal law or their state legislatures. As time went on, a resurgence of conservative activists grew more fearful and vocal about the dangers of such change. President Obama started out the year speaking on the bright shining idea of a public option, or state-funded insurance plan that could cover any citizen who chooses it. The President's stance grew weaker and more beholden to private insurance companies as the debates dragged on, from summer to fall.
We lost Senator Ted Kennedy in this last fateful year, and still his long fight for reform, including meaningful health care reform, is impressed upon us. But what will actually be done?

Can Americans get beyond the scary rumors, spun out by lobbyists and paid provocateurs, that pit us against each other? Can members of Congress stop the filibusters and see the truth of the thousands of lobbyist-written pages in the bills on their docket?

If a health care reform bill is passed this year, with the help of petitions and protests and citizen-funded ad campaigns, will it be enough to dig us out of our hole of debt and poor health? Or will new laws be enacted to restrict consumers as well as health care industries, to make abortions more costly than ever, and to tax the people at rates higher than inflation?
It's hard to tell, when no single person has the time to even read the grossly lengthy bills written in legal-ese.
Still, progressives keep on pushing for what they want: single-payer health care for all, not a weak public option, not a government take-over of medicine.

IndyMedia volunteers recently released a compilation of the actions and advice of the local health care reform movement. The Health Care Reform Movement: Rumors and Facts includes the expert analysis of Dr. Joel Albers, active with the Universal Health Care Action Network of Minnesota, and Dr. Lisa Nilles, active with the Minnesota Universal Health Care Coalition.

This short documentary should clarify the issues and propel us to pass meaningful reform. It can be viewed online:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hc8aMQi6H6E