Howard Dean on Healthcare Law

The Supreme Court decision to uphold President Obama's healthcare law is a huge blow to the right-wing -- but the fight for universal healthcare is far from over.

Right now, Republicans and right-wing activists are organizing. They see today's decision as a rallying point. For them, this is just the beginning.

Republicans are going to use today's decision as ammunition to fire up their far right base just four months from Election Day. They're going to campaign hard against President Obama, against Democrats, and for repealing the healthcare law.

And if they win in November, they're not going to stop until they've stripped tens of millions of Americans of their healthcare coverage and turned Medicare into a voucher program.

We can't let that happen. We need to stand up for the reforms that we've made and keep working towards providing universal healthcare for all Americans.

Can you chip in $10 right now to beat Republicans and stop their plans to privatize Medicare?

The Republican voucher plan is bad policy and bad politics -- and Republicans are doubling down on it in light of today's decision.

Turning Medicare into a voucher plan will destroy Medicare as we know it and will throw millions of America's seniors into poverty.

It's also a huge loser for Republicans. Last year, Kathy Hochul won a tough congressional race campaigning hard against the Republican voucher plan. Still today, an overwhelming majority of Americans oppose turning Medicare into a voucher program.

Now, it's more important than ever that we beat back Republicans and elect good Democrats in November. We need to work harder than ever to take back the House, keep the Senate and reelect President Obama.

Please contribute $10 right now to beat the right-wing assault on healthcare reform.

Thank you for everything you do.

-Howard

Gov. Howard Dean, M.D.
Founder, Democracy for America

Affordable Care Act

We want to share our joy with you! The Feminist Majority is elated that the Supreme Court has upheld the Constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act – an historic advance for women and the most important advance since the passage of Title IX.

We've listed what women will gain from the full implementation of the Affordable Care Act below.

Feminists are determined to protect the gains of the Affordable Care Act, which will protect the lives and health of millions of women and their families each year and make our nation stronger and healthier.

For equality,

Eleanor Smeal
President
Feminist Majority

Some 32 million people (a majority women) will gain access to health care insurance coverage including 16 million people (also a majority women) who will gain access through Medicaid.

Subsidies to purchase coverage

• About three-fourths of people who purchase through the insurance exchanges (those with incomes between 133% and 400% of poverty) will receive a federal subsidy to help pay for the coverage.

Bans Discrimination

• By 2014 at the latest, insurers will be banned from "gender rating," or charging women higher premiums than men for the same coverage, both for individual policies and for employer group plans with fewer than 100 employees. In most states, women with individual plans pay on the average some 48% higher premiums than men for the same health insurance coverage.

No Co-Pays or Deductibles for Preventive Care including Birth Control

• Every new insurance policy is required to include the basic preventive health care package without any co-pays or deductibles. As recommended by the Institutes of Medicine, this includes pap smears, mammograms, birth control, STI/STD testing, well woman checkups, immunizations and other preventive care.

Discrimination Based on Pre-Existing Conditions Eliminated

• Exclusions for pre-existing conditions were immediately eliminated for children in 2010, and will be eliminated in 2014 for adults. This will prevent the exclusion of coverage for women who have "pre-existing conditions" such as pregnancy, prior injuries caused by domestic violence, the second or subsequent Caesarian delivery, re-occurrence of breast cancer, etc. A temporary high risk insurance pool program is available to cover eligible adults with pre-existing conditions until 2014.

Bans Insurers from Dropping Coverage Because of Illness

Mandatory Coverage of Maternity Care and Specific Health Services

• Beginning January 1, 2014, individual and small employer plans must cover at a minimum a comprehensive package of "essential health benefits" including, for example, pre-natal and maternity care, prescription drug coverage, mental health care, and pediatric care (including oral and vision care). Currently 87 percent of individual health insurance plans exclude maternity coverage.

Mental Health Parity

Benefits for Older People

• Medicare guaranteed benefits are not reduced.
• Beginning in 2011, Medicare now covers the full cost of preventive care, including cancer screenings, annual physical examinations and immunizations.
• The Medicare prescription drug "Donut Hole" will be gradually eliminated, starting with a $250 payment to beneficiaries in 2010 and a 50% discount on Medicare Part D prescription drug costs. By 2020, payments by beneficiaries will be reduced to 25% of drug costs in the gap.

Ban on Discrimination against Lower Paid Employees

• Employers will not be allowed to provide inferior plans with less coverage to their lower-paid workers, who are more likely to be women and people of color.

Addresses National Nursing and Primary Care Physicians Shortage

• The law increases the numbers of nursing education slots, providing loan repayments and retention grants and offering grants for employment and training of family nurse practitioners. It provides scholarships, loan programs and bonus payments to private care physicians and general surgeons. It also expands health accessibility by doubly the capacity of community health centers. New programs will increase support for school-based and nurse-managed health centers.

Hollywood vs. The Internet

It's us versus THEM again.  

Hollywood attorneys are trying to use the courts to circumvent Congress and implement a backdoor SOPA/PIPA scheme.
Fight Back: YOUR FILES ON Google, Dropbox, Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, YouTube, Flickr, etc. and even your emails are in jeopardy.  

We need to make sure the judge understands that his decision will affect millions of people.

Demand Progress is fighting back in the courts and standing up for Internet users. We are taking on the United States and the MPAA. Please click here to support our legal brief -- the court will be hearing the case TOMORROW.

BACKGROUND: One day after the Internet staged a massive blackout to protest Congress's Internet censorship legislation (SOPA/PIPA), the United States responded by seizing millions of ordinary user files hosted on the popular website Megaupload.com.

With an aim of shutting down Megaupload and other Cloud-based hosting services (like Dropbox, YouTube or even your email provider), the government is trying to claim website operators should face decades in prison for the misdeeds of some of their users.

But while they pursue trumped up criminal charges against the companies' founders, they are shutting down dozens of websites, and leaving ordinary Internet users without any way of retrieving their files.

Please click here to sign on as a supporter of our legal brief: The judge will be hearing the case TOMORROW, and we need to make sure he understands that his ruling affects millions of us.

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak called the case against Megaupload a "threat to innovation". Wozniak likened the Megaupload site to a highway and those who shared pirated movies and songs to speeding motorists.

"You don't just shut down the whole street because somebody is speeding," he said.

Numerous laws on the books already give copyright holders plenty of avenues to stop actual infringement, but that's not enough to satisfy Hollywood's lawyers and lobbyists.

And get this:  The prosecutor in the case, Neil MacBride, previously served as the Anti-Piracy Vice President of the Business Software Alliance, where he represented the intellectual property interests of countless multinational corporations.

Now Hollywood's lobbyists, represented by the Motion Picture Association of America, want him to make it nearly impossible for ordinary Internet users to get their property back.

Please click here to sign on to our legal brief, and make sure the courts understand that millions of Internet users will be impacted by the judge's decision.

And please use these links or forward this email to urge your friends to get involved right away -- we need as many people as possible to sign on to the brief so that the judge understands the broad impacts of his decision.

 If you're already on Facebook, click here to share with your friends.

 If you're already on Twitter, click here to tweet about the campaign: Tweet

Thanks for helping us take on Hollywood (again).

--Demand Progress

Republicans Stealing Election

They've gotten so brazen, Republicans are actually publicly bragging about their attempt to steal the 2012 election.

Back in October of 2011, CREDO Action members fought to stop a voter identification bill in Pennsylvania that would disenfranchise thousands of voters statewide in advance of the 2012 presidential election. Republicans said they were concerned about so-called (but effectively non-existent) voter fraud. The bill passed and was signed into law by Republican Governor Tom Corbett.

But just this weekend, Pennsylvania Republican House Leader Mike Turzai (R-PA) admitted the bill was about handing Pennsylvania's all-important electoral votes to Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney.

Tell the Senate Judiciary Committee: Hold emergency hearings on Pennsylvania Republicans' scheme to steal the presidential election. Click here to automatically sign the petition.

At a Republican State Committee meeting Turzai listed the biggest accomplishments of the Republican-led legislature¹, stating:

"Pro-Second Amendment? The Castle Doctrine, it's done. First pro-life legislation — abortion facility regulations — in 22 years, done. Voter ID, which is gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania, done."

It's now more clear than ever — the Pennsylvania legislature passed a voter identification bill in order to disenfranchise thousands of voters across the state. The bill requires voters to show a valid form of photo identification when they head to the polls, and the information on the ID including current address must match exactly their voter registration information. This bill doesn't serve any purpose other than making it much harder for students, seniors, and lower-income citizens to vote.

Tell Sen. Patrick Leahy, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee: Don't let Pennsylvania Republicans steal the presidential election. Federal hearings are needed now! Click here to automatically sign the petition.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is the highest ranking Congressional body with jurisdiction over federal voting issues. Sen. Patrick Leahy is the chairman and ranking Democrat on the committee. We need him to hold hearings immediately to investigate actions by Pennsylvania Republicans to interfere with the outcome of a federal election.

The Pennsylvania legislature should be trying to help more eligible voters participate in the democratic process, not disenfranchising seniors, students and the poor. And it certainly should not be disenfranchising U.S. citizens for the explicit purpose of swinging the battleground state of Pennsylvania to Republican Mitt Romney in November.

The bill Turzai was bragging about helps Republicans by making it difficult for members of the Pennsylvania electorate who move a lot, like students and lower-income voters, to be able to vote without going through costly and time consuming procedures to get new photo identification every time they move. Senior citizen voters are also disproportionately affected because they may not be able to drive or might not be physically able to travel to obtain new photo identification.

It's not okay for Pennsylvania Republicans to pick and choose which Pennsylvanians are able to vote. No one should be able to take away a U.S. citizen's right to vote. Now that the bill has passed, federal intervention is necessary to stop the state's Republicans from stealing the presidential election.

Click below to automatically sign the petition:
http://act.credoaction.com/r/?r=6903999&p=pennsylvania_election_protection&id=42425-2593817-uodnrXx&t=10

Thank you for standing up for the right to vote.

Becky Bond, Political Director
CREDO Action from Working Assets

1. Pennsylvania Republican: Voter ID Laws Are Gonna Allow Governor Romney To Win, Think Progress, June 25, 2012