Washington DC is a favorite place to demonstrate, but our victory regarding healthcare will happen in the streets and it needs to be the street where there is a hospital.  No, it's not because of burns and pitchfork-related injuries.  It's because it is those voices that will make the most noise, the ones leaving the hospital 

Whose voices are those?  The Doctors?  The Nurses?  The Candy-Stripers?  Well, there have certainly been some heroes from the medical community who hve raised their voices, both here on TPM and at the hearings.  They raised a raucus before Baucus.  Those men and women advocated admirably.  I thought they were a good seed for a movement.  But we are going to need a big stick and for that we will need a big tree.  I propose we plant that tree on the street by the hospitals and we water that tree with the relatives and friends of the patients who need healthcare right now!!!

For a person to raise their voice requires the passion to do so.  Some of the most clear voices we hear here on TPM are those with passion, which is not isolated to screaming.  There are other passions.  In this instance, the passion is sympathy for those who suffer.  As relatives and friends watch helplessly, their loved ones suffer in these medical centers.  Not because the providers are incompetent, though there are a few of those.  They suffer because they are sick, period.  The observers are frustrated they cannot do more, that there loved ones are not made well immediately, that there is not a pill for the problem.

These people, the relatives and friends are the best recruits, and showing them the way to enhance the care of their loved ones is something they desperately wish.  These people will bring passion to the issue of healthcare reform.  These are the people who want better healthcare right now!!! 

MiddleClassBill and I were debating healthcare a day or two ago and he wanted to emphasize that people should have a choice whether they wish to be covered or not.  It seems to me the only ones who do not want covereage are those who have millions of dollars and those who do not need healthcare, right now!!!  Although I suspect those millionaires would also prefer to have insurance when they get sick so they only have a co-pay and not the whole bill.  Afterall, they did not become millionaires paying full prices.

The only leadership on this issue right now is Howard Dean.  His Democracy For America organization gathered 400,000 signatures, but there was no media coverage.  Does the media have an agenda?  If we read TPM, we certainly have a strong suspicion they do, especially when every 3rd commericial is for some drug to cure coxafloppin, or Restless Leg Syndrome.  

We might also ask, why are there not more providers advocating change.  Well, if there is no change, how will these providers get on the list the next time insurance puts together a Preferred Provider Directory?  I suspect there is a great deal of fear in them related to speaking out, but I also suspect they might forward funds to an entity with the right model.  Might that be Democracy For America?  I'm considering that as I write this, but the thrust of my message here is that we should be at the hospitals and medical facilities recruiting people to bring their voices to the issue of healthcare reform, because they are the ones needing healthcare, right now!!!   Nothing underscores the need for healthcare reform more poignantly then the real experiences of those in a critical health situation right now!!!!!  We need those voices to be heard and we know where they are, we just need to know where to bring them.  Any ideas, TPM?  DFA is standing right now!!! so is there a need to start from scratch?