LEFT of the HUDSON: Stop Greg Ball from making a mockery of the health care reform debate

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Stop Greg Ball from making a mockery of the health care reform debate

Assembly member Greg Ball (who is running against Democrat John Hall for Congress this fall) is trying to take down Democratic health care initiatives by staging his own sham town halls. There will be plenty of astroturfing and choreographed outrage from Ball and his acolytes, and it’s all meant to DESTROY PRESIDENT OBAMA’S PUBLIC OPTION PLAN, which will make health care affordable and accessible to millions of Americans.

Ball is using this insincere forum to spread his own dangerous ultraconservative demagoguery. These misleading “town halls,” if we leave them to Ball and his supporters, will contain nothing but fabricated, bombastic, and inflammatory rhetoric. They are meant to be a dog and pony show staged for the local and national media to demonstrate that the constituents of the 19th Congressional District are rabidly against health care. Ball is shamelessly staging this chicanery to exploit an issue that is more moral than political to further his career advancement.

Whether you support a single-payer or public option universal health care plan, you must help stop Assemblyman Ball from making a mockery and political football out of such a critical moral issue.

I’m asking that those that stand for real health-care reform—especially those in the 19th Congressional District—attend one of these flimflam meetings to show our unity. Barrage Ball and his acolytes with thoughtful questions and educated statements, but do not heckle or interrupt the speakers as the Republican-paid activists have done.

It’s critical that we step up our efforts now for affordable health care and move toward universal health care. As our health-care system is currently structured, the system will become financially unsustainable in five to ten years. If you think the economy is in a funk right now, what will it be like when some 100 million people are without health care coverage and skyrocketing health care costs financially cripple those with insurance?

There is no issue so critical to our nation’s economic future as health-care reform. Please don’t allow the obstructionist Republicans to make a mockery of it.

Here are a list of events to attend below:

Greg Ball and Assemblywoman Annie Rabbit
Monday, August 17th, 7 PM (doors open 6:30)
Greenwood Lake American Legion Arthur Finnegan Post
40 Mountain Lakes Lane
Greenwood Lake

Greg Ball and Town Supervisor Oan Pagonez
Wednesday August 19th 7 PM, (doors open 6:30)
(Note new location)
Hotel Sierra Suites Conference Room
100 Westage Business Center Dr, Fishkill, NY 12524

Greg Ball and Cornwall Town Supervisor Kevin Quigley
Friday, August 21st 7 PM (doors open 6:30)
Munger Cottage – Cornwall Community Center
183 Main St.
Cornwall, NY 12518

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

I phoned Engel, Gillibrand and Schumer yesterday with a simple message: Do NOT support health care reform that does not include a strong public option. The response I got in all three offices was the same "Engel/Gillibrand/Schumer supports a strong public option." Not good enough I say - they must pledge to not support a plan without the public option, and that is where the person at the end of the line gets very officious and says, "I will let him/her know about your opinion." Engel is not one of the 60 congresspeople who have pledged to vote no on a plan without a public option, and he should make that pledge, he would be backed up in this district. Similarly, for the two NY senators not to be out there as a counter to Conrad and Baucus is inexcusable. The Blue Dogs say we can't do it without their votes, well isn't it about time the progressives stood their ground and said, "Not without our vote?" After all, they are supposed to have our backs.

Emily