countdowntohealthcare.com

This blog post can also be found on FireDogLake here.

I want to extend a warm thank you to everyone who voted for me in FDL’s “Fire Dog of the Year” contest. The FDL Fire Dog label is one I will wear proudly as we continue to march forward on health care, the economy, and the many ways that we are working together to create real and lasting change in America.

I’ll never back down from telling the Republicans where they can shove all their filibusters because health care reform strikes the very heart of so many challenges our nation is facing.

You can join me in this fight at CountdowntoHealthCare.com where you can find updates on our progress, learn about what I’m doing to keep the fight alive, and can sign my petition to keeping working for real reform.

Every year, we spend $145 billion on insurance company overhead and profits. That’s not money we spend on better care or vital procedures—it’s money we send straight to insurance company executives and shareholders.

As we face an economic crisis on one hand and rising governments deficits on another, this is money we should be saving and investing—not wasting on insurance companies. We’re only going to get back on track when this annual $145 billion goes back to American families who are struggling, back to the small businesses who drive our economy, and back to lowering government deficits.

But, as you know, we can’t truly contain health care costs until we introduce much needed competition to the insurance industry.

There is more than one way to do this. I’ve fought hard for a single-payer system like Medicare, because it shows that you can achieve better results than insurance companies with only 1 percent overhead. But I’ve also fought for common sense reforms like the public option or the Medicare buy-in—solutions that have been blocked by a broken Senate process that makes a majority out of the 41 senators who don’t want real health reform.

Thanks to the support of you all here at FDL and everyone at CountdowntoHealthCare.com, I believe we can win this fight.

I may count no friends in the insurance industry, but I’m grateful for the help of people like you–people who know real health care reform is long overdue. I’m not going to give up as long as you stand with me.

Anthony