Massive "Health Care for All" Rallies Spark New Round in Fight for National Health Care

Last Saturday's massive "Health Care for All" rally in downtown Seattle has sparked renewed efforts to win national health care reform as several good-and bad-proposals make their way through the U.S. Congress.

Some 3,500 Federation and other marchers took part in the event.



Meanwhile, several dueling plans have hit Congress, according to the Federation Legislative and Political Action Department.

The House version is expected to head to the floor by July 31. The Senate is looking to get its version through by early August. The August recess will be spent hammering out differences between the two versions.

The House plan appears to include a public health insurance option. Sen. Ted Kennedy's version in Senate committee appears on the right track.

However, a small group of senators on the Senate Finance Committee, which will introduce its own version of reform later this month, is trying to forge a bipartisan compromise that would "trigger" a public health insurance plan only if the private insurance companies don't clean up their act first. If that plan succeeds, it would be a poison pill that kills health care reform.

In the coming weeks and months, watch for letters and online action directed at Sen. Maria Cantwell to strongly oppose the "trigger" plan and instead support Sen. Charles Schumer's proposal to include a public health insurance option in the Finance Committee's bill.

Go to www.wfse.org > Action Center to take action now.