Demand Healthcare Access in the American Jobs and Families Plan!

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Call Script

My name is __________. I am a constituent, and my zip code is _______. I am a member of Indivisible SF. I urge you to enact an effective American Jobs and Families Plan that fosters economic recovery from the pandemic and begins to seriously address equal opportunity, structural inequality, and economic justice. And to fully pay for it by restoring the taxes that the Trump regime cut for the obscenely wealthy and giant transnational corporations. An essential element of such legislation must be access to affordable healthcare for all, including the following:

Lowering Medicare enrollment age to 60 and creating a “public option” health care plan for those too young for Medicare.
Expanding Medicare to cover dental, vision, and hearing.
Lowering prescription drug costs and health insurance premiums by allowing Medicare to negotiate prices like the VA does.
Closing the Medicaid coverage gap for people too young for Medicare in states that have refused to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act
Requiring employers to provide paid days off for family health care needs as proposed in the Healthy Families Act.

In addition, I support increased enforcement funds for the IRS and I strongly oppose deleting them to appease Republicans who are never going to vote for anything no matter how much you water it down.

Most importantly, you must end the filibuster and refuse to go on August recess until voting rights and the American Jobs and Families Plan have been addressed.

Background

Normally, spending bills are drafted and passed in the House and then considered by the Senate. But Republican threats to block all Democratic legislation with filibusters have disrupted the normal processes. Which means that because it’s the roadblock, the Senate rather than the House will be the arena for the real fights that will determine victory or defeat .

What we have now are two confusing political brawls: one over voting rights, and the other over economic relief/recovery and taxation-justice. The open and covert ploys and maneuvers, the media-spinning and public posturing, the compromise-deal-making and rejecting, and the political moves and countermoves are impossible for those of us outside the Beltway to follow or accurately assess. As is the confusing and constantly changing barrage of arcane terminology and insider jargon such as “infrastructure,” “reconciliation-bill,” “budget-resolution,” “bipartisan-framework,” “cloture,” and so on.

From our point of view, each of the two issue brawls boils down to the same two political battles. In order to enact desperately needed voting rights and economic justice legislation, we need to break, or somehow circumvent, the Republican filibuster blockades. But to do that we have to gain the votes of conservative corporate Democrats such as Manchin, Sinema, and our own Feinstein.

Meanwhile, using the filibuster as an excuse, the most conservative Democratic senators led by Manchin (D-WV) joined the least Trumpite Republican senators to propose a “bipartisan” bill (Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework or BIF) that essentially eliminates almost all of the progressive elements in Biden’s proposals. They assert it is “bipartisan” because a few senators from each party say they support it, even though a clear majority of the American people want what’s in the AJFP. BIF is narrowly focused on infrastructure construction and repair projects that will provide windfall profits to construction companies but do nothing about healthcare or other human needs.

Because the BIF is a traditional corporate-friendly spending bill bereft of progressive social policies, its supporters claim they can find ten Republicans to vote for it, which would allow it to pass the Senate despite being filibustered. But that is not guaranteed. Many progressives fear that Republicans will do as they have done before -- drag out the process as long as they can, get moderate Democrats to water it down in the hope of eventual Republican support, and then vote against it.

Two matters may be prominent in the news this week:

Senate Filibuster. Schumer has announced that today (Wednesday July 21) Democrats will challenge the Republican filibuster against Manchin’s BIF bill by trying to override it with a “cloture” vote, which requires 60 votes to pass. If 10 Republican senators vote “aye” on cloture, the Senate can begin discussing the bill and it will proceed to debate and amendment (a second filibuster-override vote will be required to actually pass the final bill). If Manchin can’t get 10 Republican cloture votes to override the filibuster, the bill will be bottled up until it is either abandoned or 10 GOP votes can be found at some future date. If it’s blocked by filibuster, that will increase pressure on Manchin, Sinema, and Feinstein to abolish or reform the filibuster rules.
Budget Resolution. Democratic leaders promised progressives they would submit a big reconciliation bill to enact the progressive agenda in the AJFP by a simple majority vote that circumvents the filibuster. The first step in that process is to pass a Budget Resolution in the Senate that contains the set-up language for the later reconciliation bill. The Budget Resolution cannot be filibustered, but if (as expected) all Republicans vote against it, all 50 Democratic senators will have to support it so that it will pass with V.P. Harris’ tie-breaking vote. Schumer has indicated that he may call up the budget resolution for a vote this week.