Single Payer Rally in Nashville

Representatives of: Nashville Chapter of Healthcare Now!,Tennessee Physicians for a National Healthcare Program, National Nurses Organizing Committee, Tennessee National Organization for Women, National Chapter of NOW, Nashville Peace & Justice Center and the Nashville Chapter of Veterans for Peace will deliver a birthday cake to the office of Rep. Jim Cooper to celebrate the 44th birthday of Medicare Thursday, July 30. They will also deliver recommendations on health care reform to Rep. Cooper through his office and will request a meeting with Rep. Cooper during
the U.S. House of Representative's August break. They know that Rep. Cooper, a “Blue Dog” Democrat, is concerned about the cost of health care reform.

They hope that Rep. Cooper will recognize that the real way to make
meaningful health care reform financially viable is to redirect the
funds currently being used for the excessive profits, compensations,
overheads and duplicatory paperwork of the for-profit health insurance
industry and use them instead to provide decent health care for
everyone in America.

This event is part of a nationwide Rally and Lobby Day, ca
lled by the
Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Health Care, to celebrate
Medicare's 44th birthday. Members of this coalition believe that the
best way to save Medicare is to expand it to everyone in America and to
make it a truly single-payer system by removing the for-profit
interests and guaranteeing health care as a right for all.

The public is invited to share in the birthday cake and celebration and
to express their support for a Single Payer Health Care system in the
park across from Rep. Jim Cooper's office and the downtown public
library.

Jane Hussain, who is celebrating the 44th birthday of Medicare, hopes
that Medicare will still be there for her when she turns 65. Having
lost her job due to health problems, she says she may have to “hold her
breath for several years” between the time her COBRA insurance coverage
runs out and the time she becomes eligible for Medicare. “Medicare was
originally designed to cover everyone in America, but special interests
have prevented that from happening for all these years. Now the
American people are demanding real, serious health care reform. I hope
we get it”.

www.Healthcare-Now.org