Sign up for Obamacare on October 1

MWRO shares this information as a public service...

------


From: The White House, Washington

Hello, everyone --

The Affordable Care Act. Health Reform. Obamacare. Whatever you'd like to call it, it's going to mean something very tangible for millions more Americans in just four days.

Starting October 1 -- that's next Tuesday -- Americans who need or want health insurance will be able to be able to go to healthcare.gov. They'll be able to compare plans based on their needs, and they'll be able to sign up for quality, affordable health coverage.

There are folks out there with questions about what this law means for them. It's on all of us to make sure those questions are answered. That's the only way this is going to work.

Our team has put together a great video that unpacks the law, piece by piece, in an incredibly simple way. It explains exactly what October 1 is going to mean for those millions of folks who need coverage.

Take a look, but don't let it stop with you. We all know at least one person who either doesn't have insurance, or wants to know more about the law. Forward this on to other folks who you know need to see it.

You've probably heard about the 3.1 million young adults who have gained coverage through their parents' plans, the 6.3 million seniors who are paying less for prescription drugs, and the more than 100 million Americans who have gotten free preventative care like mammograms and cancer screenings.

Right now, the best thing we can do is make sure that, ahead of October 1, we don't let valuable information like this die in our inboxes. So don't let it happen. Start talking to your friends, your coworkers, your family members. Answer their questions. Make sure they know how to get covered, and then ask them to help others get covered.

That starts with sharing this video, right now, with the folks you know need to see it:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/share/what-obamacare-means-you

Let's get to it.

Thanks,

David

David Simas
Deputy Senior Advisor
The White House
@Simas44

Bail Out The People — Not The Corporations

(reposted from the People's Tribune, March 2009)

Over the past year, more than 2.2 million homes have been lost to foreclosure, a record number. Some four million jobs have vanished, and jobs continue to be lost at the rate of about 650,000 a month. One American in three has suffered a job loss or a pay cut in their household. Those once stably employed are becoming destitute, and those who were already destitute are dying.

The question on everyone’s lips is, what is our government doing to stop the ongoing economic catastrophe that threatens us all? What should it do? Where do the interests of the people lie?

As this issue of the People’s Tribune goes to press, President Obama has signed an economic stimulus bill which, we’re told, will create or save a few million jobs and expand public assistance to the unemployed, among other things. The government is also pondering how best to bail out the banks, arguing that helping the banks will restart the flow of credit and help get the economy going again. And the administration announced a $75 billion foreclosure-prevention plan that it says could help up to nine million homeowners keep their homes.

We should be on guard. We should ask ourselves, what actually needs to be achieved? The end result of the government’s intervention should be to guarantee the necessities of life for anyone who is doing without them. If this isn’t happening, then we need to demand that the government do what is right.

The underlying cause of the crisis is that more and more production is carried on with less and less labor, because of the introduction of labor-replacing technology into the economy. This technology has wiped out jobs and driven down wages for those still working. Because people with low wages or no jobs buy less, the market for goods and services is being wiped out. As the market has been undermined, the economy was kept going with debt – the massive extension of credit to workers and businesses. Credit was also used to fuel a huge orgy of speculation in stocks, bonds, credit default swaps, mortgage-backed securities and all sorts of exotic financial instruments that really had no value. On a temporary basis, this speculation brought huge profits to the financial sector.

This house of credit, debt and speculation has been standing on a “real” economy that has been hollowed out by labor-replacing technology. Eventually the debt-based bubble had to burst, and now that it has, the real economy is falling to its true level.
In the short term, what is needed is to nationalize large parts of the economy, such as the banking system, in the interest of the people, not the corporations. We should be nationalizing the assets of the corporations—not their risks—and putting those assets to work in such a way as to guarantee every person has access to housing, health care and the other necessities of life.

In the longer term, we are going to have to decide whether we’ll have a society that serves the majority of the people, or a society organized to serve only the wealthy few. Either the people are going to have to take the corporations over and run them in society’s interest, or the privately owned corporations will decide whether the rest of us live or die. This is the ultimate question we must answer.
(Image courtesy of the People's Tribune)

Seniors and the poor freeze to death in a country gone awry!

Dying a slow, painful, horrible death, a Bay City, Michigan, elderly man was discovered January 17th frozen to death in his home. It happened a few days after the local utility company, Bay City Electric Light & Power installed a "limiter"--which limits the flow of electricity--outside his home for failing to pay his electric bill but neglected to show the senior citizen how it worked. Neighbors found the war veteran alone and wrapped in several layers of clothing in his bed.

Further south in Detroit, another man was found frozen solid in an abandoned warehouse. It took two days after the initial reporting for firefighters to show up and saw the man out of the ice. Authorities say he may have been there several months. And across town, scrap metal hunters found a 67 year old man sitting frozen in the front seat of his pickup truck. It's suspected that he may have suffered a heart attack. The door was wide open and he was covered in snow.

What in the world is going on?!

Senior citizens and poor people dying all around us in the bitter cold. It's no surprise that every winter snow and freezing temperatures are going to make it difficult to stay warm. But it's also everyone's responsibility to look after their neighbor, and to stop ignoring other vulnerable people in our neighborhoods and near our jobs.

It's unconscionable that it takes days for us to notice that something may be wrong with our neighbors. Why didn't someone check out sooner the man who regularly sits in his chair by the window? Why didn't neighbors go see why that pickup truck door was open day and night?

It's justifiably right to blame the utility companies for shutoffs, hospitals and clinics for lack of affordable access, and city officials for lack of low-income housing, but what about us? What are we responsible for?

It seems at minimum, we have a responsibility to check on and assist as best we can the vulnerable people around us: the seniors who live next door, the poor women and children across the street, the homeless man on the way to work. Yes, times are hard for all of us but they're harder still for others.

The latest ice storm in the midwestern and eastern states may prevent electricity restoration until mid February. Let's start figuring out what we can do to prevent the loss of anymore precious lives.

(Image from Associated Press)

Eight Years of Hell Come to an End!

By Maureen D. Taylor, MWRO State Chair

Last week, my friend, confidant and great poet Ron Allen and I talked about the "State of the State." I miss Ron who relocated out of the state because, among many other things, he was my dance partner when we would accidentally meet up at this grocery or that department store. Many a time, some Temptation tune or some Bee Gees classic would be blaring out overhead, and we would take off on a serious Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers ballroom dance step or two to the amazement of store on-lookers who always had a smile at our antics.

Ran and I spoke about how silly so many people are who ascribe to our new President's powers as if he was Superman. He is but one human being. As wonderful as we all feel about his being the President and that he has opened the door for us to do great things with him, it is both unfair and unrealistic for people to assume that he will correct all mistakes or reverse all policies.

Whose task is it to work at eliminating poverty across the country? OURS! Whose task is it to help Federal funds get directed to chronically low income persons so that those on the bottom can be encouraged and employed? OURS! Whose task is it to take control of what projects need be instituted in places like Detroit with 50% unemployment in black communities, 60% unemployment in Latino communities, 70% unemployment among Native Americans, and 75% unemployment among youth? OURS!

There is much work to be done in America, as Ron and I discussed. The soul of poetry and cultural creation has been gutted by 8 years of "mob-rule." How long will it take to repair the damage done by the Bush/Cheney Mob? Probably decades. But what matters is that we have to start the process of change now.

We are standing at a crossroad. We all have freedom, or no one does. We all have food to eat, or no one does. We all have places to live, or no one does. Technology has reached a point where there is no need for ANYONE to be hungry, homeless, without health care, uneducated, or without the means to pursue happiness and full equality.

Bush is gone, and a breath of fresh air has moved into the White House. Rush Limbaugh is having a case of the vapors, and the right wing is in absolute misery. So this is the time for us to put our best foot forward and get busy. All help and support must be directed to those at the bottom because to help them means lifting all ships. Low income people and Welfare mothers - let's give 'em something to talk about.

(Photo courtesy: Flickr Creative Commons)