from their email:
GREENS CALL A NEW DIRECTION IN NATIONAL HEALTH POLICY: SINGLE-PAYER
COVERAGE; REPEAL OF ABSTINENCE-BASED HIV AND HPV PREVENTIONGreens identify the enemies of sound health policy: profit-based HMO,
insurance, and drug firms, and right-wing religious lobbies.
More from their email on the flip:
Again from their email:
“The Medicare reform bill passed in November, 2003,
benefited pharmaceutical companies while gutting
coverage for millions of working people and making
coverage difficult and confusing for many older
Americans,” said Jody Grage Haug, co-chair of the
Green Party of the United States. Ms. Haug turns 70
in January. “With the growing public realization that
we’ve been conned out of health care, now is the time
for a popular demand and legislative action to
introduce single payer.”
The dems have been silent about healthcare lately. It seems that this issue would be theirs, not an environmental party. But they are running away from all kinds of good issues lately.
I happen to like what the greens are saying.
like this:
Health coverage in general, and AIDS/HIV treatment in particular, have
suffered because of cuts in services under the Bush Administration, said
Greens. Party leaders also stressed that abstinence-only education, in
the U.S. and abroad (i.e., in nations receiving U.S. aid) under pressure
from the Bush White House, has placed even more lives at risk. Many
women have no control over the conditions in which they have sex; these
policies leave them especially vulnerable to infection.
Greens noted recent attempts by Republicans to block a
new vaccine against cervical cancers caused by the
human papilloma virus (HPV), and compared it to the
prolonged Republican assault on condoms, including
measures to to obstruct availability and an FDA
requirement to place ‘warning’ labels on condom
packages.“The justification is that making the cervical cancer
vaccine and condoms widely available ‘sends the wrong
message’ that sex outside of a monogamous marriage is permissable,” said
Rebecca Rotzler, national co-chair of the Green Party and Deputy Mayor
of New Paltz, New York. “The message behind Bush policies that deny
information and prevention is that those who don’t conform to certain
faith-based standards deserve illness and death.”
They have this for additional information:
MORE INFORMATION
Green Party of the United States
http://www.gp.org
1700 Connecticut Avenue NW, Suite 404
Washington, DC 20009.
202-319-7191, 866-41GREEN
Fax 202-319-7193
Health Insurance Costs Exceed Annual Minimum-Wage
Earnings
By Debora Vrana, The Los Angeles Times, September 14,
2005
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-091405health_lat,0,4868032.story?coll
=la-story-footer&track=morenews
Physicians for a National Health Program
http://www.pnhp.org
“The Medicare reform bill passed in November, 2003, benefited pharmaceutical companies while gutting coverage for millions of working people and making coverage difficult and confusing for many older Americans,”…
The Greens are a little late to the party and a little short on information. (But better late than never.) Medicare is also unable to negotiate pharmaceutical prices, making a windfall for manufacturers, this being the apparent reason for the changes. Another case of harmful program changes being touted as beneficial. Oooh, looky, a Medicare drug benefit! Yeah, right! (Clearskies, anyone?)
And taken together with the Medicaid cuts, many people are being put into a very bad position.
Health coverage in general, and AIDS/HIV treatment in particular, have suffered because of cuts in services under the Bush Administration, said Greens.
Agreed, bit that’s pretty much true of every social program.
“The justification is that making the cervical cancer vaccine and condoms widely available ‘sends the wrong message’ that sex outside of a monogamous marriage is permissable,” said Rebecca Rotzler, national co-chair of the Green Party and Deputy Mayor of New Paltz, New York.
Well, the message that I take is that if your’re unfortunate enough to suffer from these conditions, too bad, you deserve to suffer/die. Because pacifying the fundies is more important than the lives of these people.
Sorry for my tone, but I have no patience for the winger positions on these issues, positions asserted while people suffer and die. I welcome the support of the Greens but like I said, they’re a little late to the party.
I think the Greens have been way out in front, but nobody’s listening. Too busy propping up the same old same old dems. It’d be wise for the dems to enlist the help of the Greens but they’re too entrenched in the power and money struggle that defines them and the problems they’re having connecting with the average person, let alone those of us on the left left who’re almost begging for them to take a friggin stand.
The Greens rock
as much as i love the greens, i want to slap the lot of ’em every time i think about roberts and ScAlito. why they couldn’t just hold their noses and vote for kerry will forever be a mystery to me.