CAF In The News

tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com — “If they throw out major portions of the reform the most important thing for Dems to talk about right now is how Republicans and the Court are leaving us to the mercy of the private insurance companies,” said Roger Hickey, co-director of the Campaign for America’s Future, in a phone interview. “And that’s not just the Supreme Court decision, but it’s the Ryan budget. … Republicans are trying to impose austerity because they say that Medicare is bankrupting the country, and Dems should point out that Republicans want to dismantle the one functioning part of our health care system — Medicare — that actually works for people, that actually controls cost. And what they’re proposing is incredibly unpopular with the voters.”

thehill.com — The Hill published a story on Campaign for America's Future's co-director Robert Borosage urging Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to hold a vote on the House Republican budget, which includes Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-Wis.) plan to replace Medicare with subsidies to buy private insurance.

Julian Pecquet of The HIll wrote, "The House passed the Ryan budget along party lines, 235-193, just before the spring recess. Democrats have spent the past two weeks hammering away at it, especially its Medicare proposal, which the Congressional Budget Office says would raise healthcare costs on seniors.

"`This Republican budget plan is an outrage. The more Americans learn about it, the angrier they get," CAF co-director Robert Borosage said in a statement. "Bring it to a vote. Force a debate on it. Let Americans know exactly where their senators stand.'"

nytimes.com — As President Obama’s fiscal commission faces a deadline this week for agreement on a plan to shrink the mounting national debt, liberal organizations will unveil debt-reduction proposals of their own in the next two days, seeking to sway the debate in favor of fewer reductions in domestic spending, more cuts in the military and higher taxes for the wealthy. The proposals from two sets of liberal advocacy groups highlight the deep ideological divides surrounding efforts to deal with the nation’s budgetary imbalances.

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huffingtonpost.com — In the 1998 midterms, Democrats actually gained seats. A rare thing for the president's party to pick up congressional seats in a second midterm election. Nevertheless, the Democrats won the day and Republicans lost a net five seats.

Take a guess how the Republicans responded. Naturally, they freaked out like infants and demanded that the party shift to the center, you know, where it's safe -- abandoning their congressional agenda in lieu of safe, small beans policy. Then they waited for all of the Democrats to be seated before they moved any votes to the floor. You know, just to be fair.

voices.washingtonpost.com — Last week, the Health Care for America Now coalition celebrated its first birthday. Formed, well, a year ago, with an initial infusion of $40 million and a coalition list that includes MoveOn.org, SEIU, the Campaign for America's Future, and pretty much every other institution even vaguely on the left, HCAN has quickly become the dominant grassroots player on health-care reform. Which is really saying something.

Talk to veterans of the 1994 effort and they will invariably lament the total absence of a liberal ground game. The grassroots energy came primarily from conservative groups and trade organizations. The National Federation of Independent Business was, for instance, very effective at influencing legislators. So too was the Chamber of Commerce. There was no analogue on the left. Unions were exhausted and angry after the NAFTA battle. All-purpose progressive organizations like MoveOn.org and Campaign for America's Future were largely non-existent. The conservatives dominated talk radio, but liberals did not have the online organizing infrastructure that they've utilized so successfully in recent years.

motherjones.com — You've probably seen the ads. Ominous voice-overs warn you about how health care reform "could put a bureaucrat in charge of your medical decisions, not you." A massive bulldozer with "government-run insurance plan" written on the side crushes your health care "choices." Canadians and Britons relay horror stories of their experiences dealing with health care in those nightmarish socialist dystopias.

The ads are the product of a multimillion-dollar ad campaign designed to derail health care reform—especially what's been dubbed the "public option," which would set up a government-run plan to compete with private insurers. The man behind this ad blitz is the person who might be Public Option Enemy No. 1: one-time hospital executive and longtime Republican donor Richard Scott.

thenation.com — Two security guards in dark suits towered over Mary Carol Jennings, a spiky-haired medical student wearing a white doctor's coat, as she and some fifty others tried to enter DC's Ritz-Carlton Hotel one morning in early March. The contingent included representatives of the AFL-CIO, MoveOn and the Campaign for America's Future. Jennings was flanked by two members of the National Nurses Organizing Committee who held a giant certificate for the head of America's Health Insurance Plans, the trade group meeting inside the hotel.

thehill.com — When it comes to healthcare reform, Democrats in Congress claim they are much more unified compared to the early ’90s, when they fumbled a chance to overhaul the system, but the same obstacles that have snagged efforts in the past still loom.

nytimes.com — In any effort to restructure American health care, two interconnected goals inevitably compete for primacy. One is providing health coverage to the uninsured, counted in 2007 at 46 million, or 15 percent of the population, and almost certainly more now. The other is slowing the relentless and unsustainable growth of health costs, which threaten virtually every family, in imagination if not in fact.