Michael Moore: Time to hit the 'reset' button
We’re still recovering from yesterday’s visit from filmmaker Michael Moore. As we wrote earlier and posted on YouTube, Moore stopped by our offices to deliver a message to President Obama that it was time to hit the “reset button” on health care reform and back a single-payer plan that guarantees coverage for all Americans.
You can see video of what Moore said posted at his YouTube page. Coincidently, as Moore, Public Citizen President Robert Weissman and representatives from the National Organization for Women, United Steelworkers, California Nurses Association and Consumer Watchdog, stated the case for universal health care, the Senate Finance Committee was voting to keep a public insurance option out of the the health care legislation in front of the Senate. The WaPo’s Dana Milbank covered the committee hearing in his column.
Here’s some of the reaction from yesterday’s event:
Meg White from BuzzFlash wrote:
Moore was beyond passionate, and clearly the least amenable to compromise of anyone on the hastily-assembled panel. Moore had a warning or two to hand out, and neither Democrats nor Republicans were spared his wrath. He tore into both parties for not listening to the will of the American people.
“When two-thirds to three-quarters of the American people want [Medicare for all], you’d think you’d try to make some political hay,” Moore said. He said that “there are millions, tens of millions” of Americans ready to stand up for a single-payer system, and predicted that the White House and Congress will finally begin to feel that pressure.
Kenneth Vogel in Politico wrote:
“To the Democrats in Congress who don’t quite get it: I want to offer a personal pledge. I – and a lot of other people – have every intention of removing you from Congress
in the next election if you stand in the way of health care legislation that the people want,” Moore told supporters of women’s groups and unions gathered at the headquarters of the government watchdog group Public Citizen. “That is not a hollow or idle threat. We will come to your district and we will work against you, first in the primary and, if we have to, in the general election.”
And here’s the video from the Senate vote:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9whAXSty1I]