Put Medicare for All on November 2018 Ballot

The time is now to organize for a Medicare for All ballot measure in as many states as possible in November 2018, when there are Congressional elections and governor’s races to bring enough voters to the polling places to vote for Medicare for All, which has been sitting in the House of Representatives since 2003, now known as HR 676.

HR 676 may be viewed at https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/676. The comprehensive summary is right at the beginning.
As you can see under Section 102, Benefits and Portability, item 11 includes all dental services except cosmetic dentistry; it should be expanded to include all dentistry. The list does not include acupuncture and all herbal remedies, which should be included in the California ballot measure. As with any bill, it is subject to improvement at any time, including after it finally passes. You will see at https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/676/cosponsors, it has 76 cosponsors, plus sponsor Rep. Conyers, all Democrats, a small fraction of the 193 Democrats in a House of Representatives of 435 members. As usual, San Francisco Rep. Nancy Pelosi is not a cosponsor; she did however have time to address AIPAC, the pro-Israel, pro-war, anti-Muslim gang.

Anyone who thinks the Democrats or Republicans will provide any kind of leadership in promoting Medicare for All, which we demanded but was openly rejected in 2009, when the Democrats promoted the Affordable Care Act (AHA) in a Democratic majority in both houses with a Democratic president, is clearly wrong. The Republican Party is opposed to government funded medical care on principle. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_the_Republican_Party

The Democratic Party is paid for by the same capitalist, profiteering, insurance companies as the Republican Party. This is now very obvious with the Medicare for All campaign that is growing. A good review of what the Democrats are doing may be found at:
“Why This Isn’t the Time for a Public Option or Medicare for Some” by Margaret Flowers, M.D., 3/30/17
http://www.globalresearch.ca/why-this-isnt-the-time-for-a-public-option-or-medicare-for-some/5582205
and
http://healthoverprofit.org/2017/03/28/why-this-isnt-the-time-for-a-public-option-or-medicare-for-some/

As Dr. Flowers states, the warmonger Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders, who supports military contractors in Vermont and everywhere else, and always supports the military budget, at first said he supported Medicare for All, but then went on CNN and said that he would rather tinker with Obama’s unAffordable Care Act and perhaps lower the Medicare age to 55. This run around routine is exactly what the Democrats gave us in their promotion of the ACA, which covers less than 10% of the US population, and for those who cannot afford the $4,000 deductibles and many copays, is completely unaffordable. It is simply a tax giveaway to the insurance companies. Thus, 30 million people have no health insurance and are not poor enough to qualify for Medicaid, the better part of the ACA. As Dr. Flowers states: “The ACA is fundamentally flawed because it treats health care as a commodity, not a public necessity.”

A good explanation of Medicare for All, also known as Single Payer Healthcare, may be found at:
https://www.healthcare-now.org/what-is-single-payer/ Another good resource is the Physicians for a National Health Plan site at http://www.pnhp.org/

Medical expenses cause 62% of personal bankruptcies in the US and 75% of the bankrupted had insurance before getting sick. See http://www.huffingtonpost.com/simple-thrifty-living/top-10-reasons-people-go-_b_6887642.html

We won Social Security, unemployment insurance and the right to organize labor unions in 1935 as a direct result of the general strikes of 1934 in San Francisco, Minneapolis and Toledo. It is the labor unions, many of which support Medicare for All, which can and must organize petition campaigns in as many of the 50 states as possible, including, and especially California, the most populated state and a bellwether state, to put Medicare for All on the ballot in November 2018. The time to start is now since they need to qualify by June 2018 at the latest.

The only 2 parties on the California ballot that always support Medicare for All are Peace & Freedom Party and the Green Party and are always active supporters of Medicare for All campaigns. You can register online for either one of these 2 pro-socialized medicine, pro-peace, pro-labor, pro-environment parties at https://covr.sos.ca.gov/?language=en-US
For more information, see:
http://www.peaceandfreedom.org/home/
http://www.peaceandfreedom.org/home/about-us/platform/full-platform
http://www.cagreens.org/
http://www.cagreens.org/platform
http://www.gp.org/
http://www.gp.org/platform