All Hands on Deck! Iowa Activists Join Howard Dean in the Fight for Health Care
“This fight is about giving choice to the American people.”HOWARD DEAN IN DES MOINES, MAY 28, 2009
Report prepared by Karen Metcalf, Bettendorf, Iowa
This week, Dr. Howard Dean was at the First Unitarian Church in Des Moines speaking on the merits of a “true” public plan option in the health care reform legislation currently being crafted in Washington, D.C. His appearance was a joint effort of Health Care for America Now and Democracy for America. As a full-time volunteer activist who works on health care reform (state and national levels), as well as one of the original Dean supporters in his campaign for president, I was obviously interested in and excited about this event.
This was, in some ways, a different Howard Dean than I remember from when he was campaigning. Gone was much of the impassioned rhetoric about empowering people—his campaign and that of Obama have resonated with many, who now feel empowered and ready to act. The new tone was much more straightforward—explanations of some of the general features of the kind of public plan that he is supporting, along with some of the hard political realities that affect the kind of plan that has a chance of success this year. Still, skilled politician that he is, he did his best to listen to everyone in the room, even those who were troubled by his message.
As he said at the outset, his purpose was to “make sure that a healthcare reform bill is a real healthcare reform bill.” He differentiated between real and “fake” public plans, which he considers a waste of dollars. These include “trigger” plans, in which a public plan is created if certain benchmarks aren't met, and proposals that are “like state insurance plans.” His position was very clear: “Without a public option this isn't real reform.” The key word is “option,” giving Americans under 65 a choice other than just the private insurance that is the only available option for them at the moment.
He was highly complimentary of the plan of President Obama, calling it the “best plan politically” that he's seen. As he explained, because 80% of Americans have insurance, and “in a democracy 80% always wins over 20%,” Obama is very astute in telling Americans, “If you like what you have, you can keep it.” He explained that, from a political point of view, healthcare insurance is like Congress: people complain, but they stick to what they know.
Dr. Dean worked hard to address the supporters of a single payer plan that he knew were in the room. He spent several minutes at the beginning of his remarks saying that he was “grateful” to supporters of H.R. 676 (the single payer bill that has been filed in the House of Representatives), and he told them that they should be at the table, a reference to their explicit exclusion from hearings of the Senate Finance Committee on healthcare reform. He went into some detail acknowledging the efficiency of single payer, using his experiences as governor of Vermont to contrast how much more of the revenue for government-run plans goes to healthcare delivery.
But he made it clear that he was not in Iowa to promote single payer. Rather, he is asking Congress, “Give us the choice.” He is asking Congress to set up competing public and private systems and see which works better.
Despite his willingness to say more about single payer and H.R. 676, at least 3 single payer supporters disrupted the meeting for a few minutes with protests, but the audience clearly wanted to hear Dr. Dean and to have the meeting proceed in a more measured tone, so there was no further disruption after they were quietly escorted from the room.
So what was he asking of his audience? 1 – First, call your Senators and their staff to support the public plan option. These calls are the most urgent, since healthcare reform will go through the Senate first.
2 – Second, call your member of Congress with the same message. If you want to write a letter, be sure it's an individual letter giving your own experience, not a form letter. Also, go to his website, standwithdrdean.com to become more involved.
3 – Finally, engage in door-knocking, especially with people who might not agree with you.
The bottom line: he wants “a system in which everyone is covered adequately.” While the word “adequately” might not get people's juices flowing, those of us who have been working on this issue for years know that it's the kind of realistic rhetoric that is likely to take us much, much closer to a healthcare SYSTEM that is reasonably humane to all.
Yesterday's event also had a special significance for me, because it was the first opportunity to publicly display our Lend-a-Hand-for-Healthcare project, a unique effort from some of us in the Quad Cities to collect 18,000 handprints from 18,000 individuals to represent the estimated 18,000 (now up to an estimated 22,000) people who die annually because they lack health insurance. We've collected handprints from all kinds of people at a wide variety of events, and the beauty of handprints is that they are great equalizers. Who can tell someone's age, gender, socio-economic or health status, etc. from a handprint?
We do have one exception, however, in that we have a VIP panel, with signed handprints—and our very first VIP, back in 2005, was Howard Dean. Imagine my excitement when I was told that we could do a “show-and-tell” to let him see our progress! We have 6821 handprints so far, and we only had time to put out about 2/3 of them, but they filled a large room—windows, walls, and floor. Dr. Dean graciously gave us our photo op and seemed genuinely interested in the project, which was very gratifying.
Blog For Iowa 
Awesome Karen!
Thanks for all you do to ensure healthcare for all!
How many of the handprint banners were displayed in DesMoines? It's really something to see them laid out together – that's alot of folks.
Caroline
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