‘Everyone knows this plan is DOA in the Senate, so it’s shockingly irresponsible for the Speaker to waste America's time on a bad plan that’s going nowhere.’

By Ethan Rome - Executive Director, Health Care for America Now

It would be easy to criticize Speaker John Boehner's reckless and irresponsible political theater, but yesterday's spectacle in Congress speaks for itself. Enough! Call Congress and demand a clean debt-ceiling increase now.

For good reason, raising the debt ceiling has always been a routine bipartisan act of Congress. It is dangerous and foolish to toy with default by linking debt-ceiling increase to any contentious legislative initiative. This is especially true of a budget debate that forces fundamental questions over whether our government should protect tax loopholes for millionaires, billionaires and big corporations or protect seniors and middle-class families, a debate further complicated because it exposes deep divisions within the House Republican caucus.

That's why a clean debt-ceiling bill is the best way to solve this crisis.

Speaker Boehner's effort today to get the votes for a debt package that is dead-on-arrival in the Senate is as pointless as it is dangerous. Boehner and the Republicans are bringing us one step closer to a crisis that will wreck our economy and disrupt the lives of America's families. Because of their extremism, seniors may not get their Social Security checks and our soldiers fighting overseas will have to worry about whether their families back home will get their pay.

Our nation's politics have historically been held together by core values about putting country above party, about working together for the common good, especially in times of crisis. The House Republicans are tossing those values out the window.

This has to stop.

We can't wait anymore — it's time for Congress to raise the debt ceiling immediately. You can click this link and tell Congress to act now.

Grassroots Supporters Call on Republicans to Compromise and Not Wreck Our Economy to Protect Tax Breaks for Millionaires, Billionaires, Big Corporations

Washington, DC – Health Care for America Now (HCAN), the nation’s largest grassroots health care advocacy group, will join other progressive organizations today to stage more than 100 events nationwide to demand a debt deal that protects seniors and the middle class while making sure the wealthy and big corporations pay their fair share.

Republicans in the House and Senate are on the verge of inflicting major damage on our economy by refusing to drop a radical plan to balance the budget on the backs of seniors and the middle class by slashing Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security and preserving outlandish tax breaks for millionaires, private jet owners and big corporations.

“The Republicans are waging an all-out assault on the middle class in order to protect the super-rich and big corporations when we need a balanced approach to avert a crisis that will wreck the economy,” said HCAN Executive Director Ethan Rome. “People are fed up with the Republicans, who want to slash Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security just to protect tax breaks for millionaires, billionaires and big corporations. People are taking action because they want Congress to create jobs and the Republicans to stop wasting precious time pushing their extremist agenda.”

HCAN is joining with project coordinator MoveOn.org and a host of progressive organizations, including AFL-CIO, AFSCME, Alliance for Retired Americans, National Education Association, Protect Your Care, SEIU, and USAction.

Today’s events are the continuation of a massive grassroots lobbying campaign that jammed telephone lines to Congress, brought picketers to congressional district offices coast to coast and engaged tens of thousands of people opposed to a debt-ceiling deal that slashes Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security while giving tax breaks to millionaires, private jet owners and big corporations.

In the past two weeks HCAN has held more than 50 events across the country demanding members of Congress stop protecting millionaires and billionaires and preserve Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security for middle-class Americans. HCAN supporters this month also made 5,000 calls to senators and representatives' offices.

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Health Care for America Now is the nation’s leading grassroots health care advocacy organization. HCAN led the fight over the past two years to win passage of health reform and to keep Congress from being steamrolled by corporate special interests.

By Ethan Rome - Executive Director, Health Care for America Now

House Speaker John Boehner should be ashamed of his deceitful speech Monday night. He didn't tell the truth. After introducing himself as the speaker of "the whole House," Boehner spoke as a political partisan and not a practical problem solver.

Boehner is a hostage of the Tea Party fanatics in his caucus and the Republicans' obsession with protecting tax loopholes for the wealthiest Americans and corporations, like hedge fund managers, corporate jet owners, oil companies and other special interests.

Boehner's response to the president was an astonishing display of revisionist history and brutish partisan politics. Boehner described his plans in poll-tested generalities, but what he didn't tell the American people was that his proposal would cut $1.8 trillion from Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, in order to protect millionaires, billionaires and big corporations from paying their fair share. It's almost cartoonishly diabolical. The GOP's approach would paralyze Washington by forcing Congress to revisit this issue again and again instead of creating the jobs our country needs.

Monday night, Boehner told one lie after another. Not half-truths or mischaracterizations. Lies. He saved the biggest lies for how he described the debt ceiling talks themselves. He said, "I made a sincere effort to work with the president," yet every time the deal gets closer to what the Republicans want they run away. He said, "The president would not take yes for an answer." That's what the president said about Boehner last week. The difference is, when the president said it, it was true and still is.

Boehner then said that the president "wants a blank check." That's absurd. How can anyone argue that a plan with trillions of dollars in spending cuts is a blank check? The cuts being discussed are historic. They're massive.

The simple fact is that the Republicans are not working with the president to avert a crisis, they're doing everything they can to create one. In contrast, President Obama and Democratic leaders in Congress have repeatedly made clear that they're willing to work with the Republicans to develop a sensible, long-term budget and avert an economic disaster that will reverberate around the world.

President Obama has always said we need a balanced plan that includes both spending cuts and revenue. It's only fair that everyone should pitch in, including millionaires, billionaires and the big corporations, and it's critical that we protect Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security from budget cuts that would devastate America's seniors and middle-class families.

The Republicans now have to decide whether they want to govern or keep saying no to protect the wealthiest people and corporations in America. The GOP's extremist position against a balanced approach won't create a single job or help a single business keep its doors open. The Republicans' fanaticism and brinkmanship is out of control and puts at risk our economy and the financial security of all Americans.

*** Emergency Debt Ceiling Protests Tuesday At Noon (LOCAL TIME) ***

Protesters Will Call on Representatives to Stop Threatening to Destroy the American Dream

Washington, DC – As Washington continues to fail to reach a deal to raise the nation's debt ceiling, voters will gather Tuesday at noon (local time) outside the offices of their members of Congress to demand that they do not destroy the American Dream by gutting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid or pushing America into default for the first time in its history. Health Care for America Now (HCAN), the nation’s leading grassroots health care advocacy organization, is joining with a multitude of progressive organizations and the American Dream Movement to encourage supporters across the nation to take part in the protests.

The deadline to raise the nation's debt ceiling is only a week away, and Republicans in Congress have shown they are more interested in scoring political points than fixing our nation's economic problems. Instead of supporting a balanced approached to solving the budget problems, Republicans in Washington are demanding severe cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid while ensuring that corporations and billionaires avoid paying their fair share. The GOP’s approach would paralyze Washington by forcing Congress to revisit this issue frequently instead of focusing on creating the jobs our country needs.

“The Republicans now have to decide if they want to govern or keep saying no to protect the wealthiest people and corporations in America,” said HCAN Executive Director Ethan Rome. “The GOP's extremist position against a balanced approach of spending cuts and revenues won't create a single job or help a single business keep its doors open. The Republicans' fanaticism and brinkmanship is out of control and puts at risk our economy and the financial security of all Americans.”

The American Dream Movement is a growing campaign inspired by protests in Wisconsin and fueled by the brutal right-wing attacks on the middle class and the poor. HCAN and countless organizations have joined the American Dream Movement to fight to ensure that we all have the opportunities to find a decent job, afford to go to college, and secure a future for our children and our communities.

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Health Care for America Now is the nation’s leading grassroots health care advocacy organization. HCAN led the fight over the past two years to win passage of health reform and to keep Congress from being steamrolled by corporate special interests.

Here's a comment from Ethan Rome, executive director of Health Care for America Now, on the debt negotiations that President Obama discussed in his address tonight:

President Obama made clear again that he's willing to work with the Republicans to develop a sensible, long-term budget and avert an economic disaster that will reverberate around the world.

Boehner’s response to the president was an astonishing display of revisionist history and partisan politics. The Republicans have offered a reckless, short-term plan that insists on taking away Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security benefits that seniors depend on in order to protect millionaires, billionaires and big corporations from paying their fair share. The GOP’s approach would paralyze Washington by forcing Congress to revisit this issue again and again instead of creating the jobs our countryneeds.

President Obama has always said we need a balanced plan that includes both spending cuts and revenue. It's only fair that everyone should pitch in, including millionaires, billionaires and the big corporations, and it's critical that we protect Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security from budget cuts that would devastate America's seniors and middle-class families.

The Republicans now have to decide if they want to govern or keep saying no to protect the wealthiest people and corporations in America. The GOP's extremist position against a balanced approach won't create a single job or help a single business keep its doors open. The Republicans' fanaticism and brinkmanship is out of control and puts at risk our economy and the financial security of all Americans.

By Ethan Rome - Executive Director, Health Care for America Now

The extremist GOP has recklessly politicized one of the most important governing opportunities of a lifetime - Speaker of the House John Boehner walked away from bipartisan debt-ceiling talks at the last minute to protect tax loopholes for millionaires, billionaires and big corporations.

It was an astonishing display of crass, reckless partisan politics to appease the Speaker's base of Tea Party fanatics in Congress and his special-interest campaign contributors, which increasingly control him instead of his better instincts to do the right thing.

The debt-ceiling talks are about setting priorities and making hard choices. Speaker Boehner, Majority Leader Cantor and the Republicans have made their choices clear: In the negotiations they have chosen to put tax cuts for big corporations and super-rich people before all other considerations.

The Speaker and the GOP have put ideological purity and pandering to extremist right-wing interest groups and their Republican mouthpieces in Congress before problem solving to avert a crisis. Before deficit reduction. Before job creation. Before helping America's seniors and working and middle-class families get by in this tough economy.

It isn't any more complicated that. They've made their choices clear. And so, too, has the president.

By all accounts the parties were moments away from a deal that met the vast majority of the Republicans' demands while forcing Democrats to accept a disturbingly long list of concessions on core principles and priority programs they hold dear. And yet giving the Republicans a lot of what they wanted was not enough because the Republicans' dirty secret is that they don't really care about the deficit. And as the president has said, the Republicans simply don't know how to say yes. Instead, the GOP has engaged in political brinkmanship on steroids to protect tax loopholes for the wealthiest Americans and big corporations that need those tax breaks less than anyone.

When the Republicans walked away from an imminent bipartisan deal, they threw the economy, the international markets and seniors and middle-class families under the bus. They're willing to default on Americans' financial obligations and default on the American dream, which has bee made possible by programs like Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, college aid and much more.

It's now abundantly clear that the Republicans are willing to drive our economy off a cliff rather than ask corporations and the super-rich to pay their fair share. They're willing to end Medicare as we know it rather than ask corporate jet owners to give up their excessive and unjustifiable tax breaks. They're willing to slash Medicaid and literally kick millions of seniors out of nursing homes — and shift billions of dollars of costs to the states while costing millions of jobs — rather than force Big Oil companies to give up their special tax loopholes.

The GOP's recklessness and irresponsibility has no limits even at this perilous moment. Unfortunately, they're not in power to govern. They don't care about getting things done for the best interest of the country. They're in power to posture and position themselves for the next election, and that's the last thing the country needs right now. I'm still hopeful that the Speaker will come around to a responsible way to solve a problem, but I hope that doesn't include the deal that was on the table because Obama was giving away too much in his effort to get a deal that would avoid default.

What's missing from the talks is the simple fact that seniors and middle-class families didn't cause the debt and shouldn't have to pay for it. Shredding the economic security of struggling families and small businesses is simply the wrong way to go. It's a bad deal for America, even it it's bipartisan.

The answer now seems pretty clear — if a fair deal can't be arrived at promptly, the president and legislative leaders should do what's both achievable and what makes the most economic and policy sense: They should have a clean vote on the debt ceiling now so we can end the gridlock and get to the business of governing and addressing job creation and other top priorities.

‘It’s brinkmanship on steroids, all to protect tax loopholes for

millionaires, billionaires and big corporations’

Washington, DC - Health Care for America Now (HCAN), the nation's leading grassroots health care advocacy organization, released the following statement from HCAN Executive Director Ethan Rome on House Speaker John Boehner's decision to walk away from bipartisan debt-ceiling talks:

"The corporate jet owners certainly got their money's worth today when Speaker Boehner walked out of the debt-ceiling talks. It's astonishing that the Republicans would risk driving our economy off a cliff rather than ask corporations and the super-rich to pay their fair share. It's brinkmanship on steroids, all to protect tax loopholes for millionaires, billionaires and big corporations."

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Health Care for America Now is the nation's leading grassroots health care advocacy organization. HCAN led the fight over the past two years to win passage of health reform and to keep Congress from being steamrolled by corporate special interests.

Washington, DC – Health Care for America Now (HCAN), the nation’s leading grassroots health care advocacy organization, released the following statement from HCAN Executive Director Ethan Rome on the administration’s new rules for implementation of consumer-friendly health insurance exchanges:

“These regulations are good news for middle-class families and small businesses that have been pushed around by greedy insurance companies. The health insurance exchanges will bring greater choice and competition to the marketplace and ensure that Americans have the same insurance choices as members of Congress.

“The extremist Republicans are recklessly pushing the nation to the brink of economic disaster in order to protect tax breaks for the rich and big corporations, and the GOP is taking the same approach to health care. Since they took over the House of Representatives in January, the Republicans have done the health insurance industry’s bidding and waged a relentless attack on the Affordable Care Act.

“Fortunately, the GOP’s campaign against health care hasn’t stopped the administration from marching forward with implementation of this landmark law, which already provides greater health care security to millions of seniors, middle-class families and small businesses.”

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Health Care for America Now is the nation’s leading grassroots health care advocacy organization. HCAN led the fight over the past two years to win passage of health reform and to keep Congress from being steamrolled by corporate special interests.