The House has now joined the Senate in voting for the legislation that could pave the way for the GOP’s plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act (also known as Obamacare). The GOP says it will have the final repeal bill drafted by January 27th.
In other words, get ready to fight for the ACA as if your life depended on it. Because it literally might.
Make it a two-pronged attack: on the phone and in the streets.
ON THE PHONE: Over the next two weeks, we need to barrage our members of congress with calls and emails telling them why repeal would be a disaster.
If you want to start today, see my posts here and here for information and advice on how to call/write your reps — from basic stuff on how to find their contact info as well as tips from former congressional staffers on how to make your calls and emails effective.
You can find some sample scripts to help you call about the ACA (as well as about Trump’s terrible cabinet picks) here.
If making these sorts of calls is tough for you, here’s some advice on calling politicians if you have social anxiety.
Don’t limit yourself to one set of calls over the next two weeks. Call, and call again, and then call again. If you can’t get through, leave a message. And then get ready to call again. Use any excuse you can to call. If the ACA repeal will affect you personally, tell them your story. If it will affect someone you care for, tell their story.
If you’ve already started making calls on the ACA or on Trump’s cabinet, give yourself a hand. Senate staffers are already feeling overwhelmed by the avalanche of calls. This is good.
IN THE STREETS: This Sunday (the 15th), there will be rallies around the country to protest the GOP’s plan to repeal the ACA.
Find out if there is a rally (or another event) planned in your area by going to to Bernie Sanders’ website here.
KEEP THE PRESSURE ON!
My one regret is that, not being an American citizen and not living in America, I can’t actually easily do anything to resist Trump. However, elections are coming up over here in Germany, so I can at least vote there to try and stop the AfD, NPD and ALFA.
Oh, look at all the states where the Sanders site says there’s no rally at all. 🙁
My life will depend on it. And my child’s.
Also, just want to put the full name in there: Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
I wish the Dems had abbreviated it to the Patient Protection Act instead of the Affordable Care Act. PR might have gone better.
Good luck, No Man!
Thanks, Falconer. Elections should be sometime between 23/8 and 22/10 (Germany doesn’t have a fixed date for elections), most likely either 17/9 or 24/9. Obviously, NPD is unlikely to gain any ground, but AfD is likely to make significant gains and will probably have some amount of representation in the Bundestag. I’ll likely vote either SPD or B90/Die Grünen, both left-wing parties, with B90/Die Grünen being somewhat further to the left.
Of course, saying, I’ll vote in the election assumes that Germany will still exist and won’t have been invaded by Russia or destroyed in a nuclear war.
@No Man Rules Alone Yes, this kind of nastiness is getting traction all over the world. We all need to fight in our respective areas. 😛
The ACA needs to be repealed…
…to make way for a single-payer system. But Congress should plan ACA’s replacement before they get excited about doing anything to it.
Left messages today. Calling tomorrow, and the next day, and the next until I get thru to actual people. Keep em overwhelmed people!
@banned
Snark aside, it really doesn’t
Just want to point out that Monday is MLK Day, and the feds will be closed.
Is it worth it to leave multiple messages over this long weekend? Or will it be counter-productive and just fill up space?
@Axe, are you opposed to single payer, or just opposed to any suggestion of repealing ACA in the current climate?
Good job everyone! Keep calling. Busy signals are a good sign! Just hang up and try again later. Don’t let their phones stop ringing! The ACA’s so incredibly important, to so many people. You’re literally saving lives by calling. Keep it up!
No Man Rules Alone
As your nym (autocorrect made that Nymeria – GOT fans are go!) indicates, we aren’t alone. I’m in Britain and wanting the best for you.
I’ll be going on a sister march in London on 21/1 (or 1/21 for our transatlantic siblings) to support the progressive movement despite Brexit, Trump and a thousand other regressive steps. I’d love to hear of Mammotheers at other sister marches, and meet up with any in London.
Keep calling everyone- if they’re already being overwhelmed that is a good sign, but everyone who can do something needs to in order to keep this up. Anything you can do is a help I’m sure. Keep going!
A list of who voted yea or nay on an amendment to protect people with pre-existing conditions.
One of my senators voted yea, the other nay. I’ll thank the yea senator and complain to the nay one.
The statement of purpose was: To create an order against legislation that would make people with disabilties and chronic conditions sick again. The vote was 49-49 with 2 not voting.
I saw a post on tumblr earlier that Senate staffers were complaining about all the angry calls.
@Falconer
Not the former, no. Not only shouldn’t Obamacare be repealed, it simply doesn’t need to be. Nothing about single payer requires an Obamacare repeal, AFAICT. Does it? Cos one could just pass a new healthcare law, and have that bill make any provisions in Obamacare that conflict with it obsolete. No separate repeal bill. Right? Doing the repeal separate and beforehand seems like it’s just asking for trouble
The idea is that after the ACA is repealed, things will be so hellish that people will demand Medicare for all, or some similar single-payor scheme. It’s similar to the reason why a Berniebro might have voted for Trump, and similarly misguided and privileged.
@PoM
Preach!
(Not that I’m assuming @Falconer and @banned are like that. But those people exist, and Brogressives. Are. The. Worst!)
Oh god no, I don’t want ACA repealed and all of us dumped in the shitter. I even hate the phrase “repeal and replace” because it’s what the Rs have preached for years now because they hate that the first black president is a D.
Incidentally, Trump just tried to torpedo LL Bean. Lisa Bean, who’s on the LLB board and has her own lobsterbusiness, made a private donation to Trump, so he tweeted his thanks, linked her to LLB, and said “Buy LL Bean!” then tagged her lobster company. People have already started boycotting … the WRONG COMPANY.
Trump tweeting favorably about a company I haven’t done business with in many years will not make me like it.
From the reading I’ve done on the subject, the (Fox) news was originally that a small group was trying to get more exposure for their coming boycott of LL Bean. Linda Bean came on, and made a fair case that it didn’t make much sense to boycott them. Trump tweets in support. The Streisand Effect takes hold, and millions of people who didn’t know anything about a possible boycott hear about it.
If Trump had kept quiet, there wouldn’t have been much of a boycott.
I get the lingering feeling that my life is going to turn into a game of Liberal Crime Squad, Nightmare mode.
(And yes, that is a real game.)
@Troubelle
Well then, it is actually a game.
I posted this on the Ben Carson thread, then realized it probably belongs here.
There are any number of parliamentary tricks that can be used by Congresscritters to avoid taking responsibility for votes. One of the most venerable is to vote for a bill, and then vote against providing the funds to carry it out.
In the Senate, bills are passed by a simple majority, but it takes 60 votes to end debate and proceed to voting on the bill. This is how the filibuster comes about. A “reconciliation bill” cannot be filibustered but can only deal with money; thus it can be used to strip funding but not repeal Obamacare. The Republicans are currently trying out the idea of threatening to disapprove the continuation of CHIP — the children’s health insurance plan, which must be reauthorized this year; the Democrats don’t have enough votes to continue it, but the “optics” of killing health insurance for kids is pretty terrible.
The Republican problem is that 75% of USians don’t want Obamacare repealed unless there is an adequate replacement. They could do it in a sneaky manner by ending the unpopular individual mandate, which might get 8 Democratic votes and would send the insurance companies scurrying away — they aren’t going to let you wait until you get sick to buy a policy and still agree to cover pre-existing conditions. But there is a substantial part of the Republican base that wants Obamacare killed instantly by being bashed over the head with a blunt instrument with plenty of resulting gore, and then the Republicans would have to own the resulting chaos.
@Weatherwax
I will be at the march in London!
Well, I may be, disabilities allowing. I certainly hope to make it, and have a freshly knitted pussyhat with me, despite my hatred of all things pink.
Liberal Crime Squad! Fight the Arch-Conservative Menace!
I’ve been boycotting L.L. Bean for a long time now, for two reasons:
(1) Years ago, I read that they used prison labor. I’m all for the rehabilitation of and job training for prisoners, but what I read convinced me that this arrangement was more about L.L. Bean being able to pay prisoners less than people on the outside. Bonus: prisoners can’t unionize! I can’t find anything online about this, so I probably got my information from a flyer.
(2) As has been widely reported in the past couple of days, L.L. Bean makes a lot of its stuff in China, where they can pay employees less than they would pay US employees and where environmental regulations are lax. Of course, L.L. Bean would have us think that all is not lost: they have an entire department devoted to goods made in the USA!
Yay.
Here’s the blurb from their “Made in the USA” department:
Well-crafted, high-quality pieces made from premium fabrics and materials from all over the world.
I work as a copy editor, not an attorney or a translator, but I consider my work to be the task of translating English into (easily understood) English.
Translation: The cotton is grown, woven, and dyed in India. Then it’s shipped to L.L. Bean in the US of A, where they make it into bags.
http://www.llbean.com/llb/shop/981?page=made-in-the-usa
I used to buy a lot of my clothes from L.L. Bean and J.Jill. As the trend to manufacture goods overseas intensified, I focused on buying only what they made in the USA. After a while, I had to concede defeat.
Nowadays, I buy most of my clothes, linens, and other household goods from fair trade outlets (for example, Patagonia, Peopletree, Marketplace of India, SERRV, Ten Thousand Villages, and Fair Indigo). When the products are fair trade, I’m not concerned about whether they’re made in the USA. I don’t have a lot of money, and these products are pricier than those found in the big-box stores. But they are better made and will last longer. Look for sales!
If it’s not possible to buy what I need from a fair trade outlet, I buy organic, which protects workers from exposure to toxic chemicals.
Or I buy from my local coop grocery stores, which vet their products with regard to quality, workers’ rights, consumer safety, and so on.
Thrift stores and consignment stores are another good choice. I bought a huge stainless steel stockpot at a thrift store recently for $8.00.
All this said, I recognize that not everyone can buy from these outlets.
Luckily, we’ve all got lots of ways to express our politics.
On Slate.com, L. V. Anderson says this about the controversy:
I’m happy to report that she’s wrong. (Not to mention the fact that Linda Bean is accused of contributing five times the legal amount to the campaign of President-elect Trump.)
Liberals, Don’t Let Donald Trump Tarnish L.L. Bean’s Sterling Brand Reputation
http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2017/01/12/liberals_don_t_let_donald_trump_tarnish_l_l_bean_s_sterling_brand_reputation.html