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What it’s going to take |
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Everything has changed, and yet nothing has changed. We’ve got amazing potential in this country, potential that Barack Obama embodies, but potential is only worth something if it is realized.
There can be no mistake. Barack Obama got elected with a mandate for change, and that mandate emphasized health care reform. As Richard Kirsch laid out yesterday:
When the Obama campaign decided to spend 86% of its October advertising on health care, it both recognized that health care was the most important issue to break through with swing voters on the economy and raised the expectation that health care would be at the top of the Obama agenda. Obama himself made it clear he sees health care as an essential plank for restoring the economy when he gave his major health care address in Newport News, Virginia on October 4, 2008. He rhetorically asked whether the nation could afford health care given the economic crisis and answered, “In other words, the question isn’t how we can afford to focus on health care – but how we can afford not to. Because in order to fix our economic crisis, and rebuild our middle class, we need to fix our health care system too. So it’s clear that the time has come – right now – to solve this problem: to cut health care costs for families and businesses, and provide affordable, accessible health insurance for every American.”
On October 6th, Obama reinforced his commitment to fixing health care by signing on to the Health Care for America Now campaign. The HCAN statement, which has now been signed by more than 145 Members of Congress, commits to making health care a first order of business in 2009 and includes ten specific principles for reform, each of which is included in Obama’s own health care plan. The decision by Senator Obama to sign on to the HCAN campaign less than a month before Election Day sent a message that HCAN represents the type of health care reform we need and that Congress should be eager to join HCAN as well. As a national grassroots coalition representing millions of individuals and more than 450 organizations, HCAN looks forward to working with the President-elect to enact our common vision of change.
Of course, just because Obama spent millions advertising his health care message and signed on to our campaign means nothing if there’s no follow-through. As FDR famously said to a group of activists, “Okay, you’ve convinced me. Now go out and put pressure on me.” We’ll be doing our best to hold Barack Obama and the rest of Congress to this mandate, but accountability is only as good as the pressure you can bring to bear.
With that in mind, SEIU and Health Care for America Now have launched a campaign to keep health care on the map. Sign up here and add your message to show that you meant it when you voted for health care reform on Tuesday. We’re going to make sure to keep you involved after you sign up, both nationally and locally in your state.
Without your help, we will have no chance at winning quality, affordable health care for all in 2009. Please, sign up.
(also posted at the NOW! blog)
