As of 2021, there are so many resources supporting Single Payer, Medicare for All and helping people advocate for it, that it becomes somewhat bewildering. We have included a list of allied organizations, many of which have documents and presentations that they make freely available. The resources here are not exhaustive, but represent materials that Leagues made or have found helpful. If you would like to suggest additions (or subtractions), please contact the LWV Google Group, Health Care Reform for the U.S. (HCR4US).
DOCUMENTARIES/MOVIES—BOOKS—HANDOUTS—POWERPOINTS TOOLKITS—ALLIES (ORGANIZATIONS)
MEDIA: DOCUMENTARIES/MOVIES/VIDEOS/CLIPS
- The first six “FIXIT” documentaries can be found at https://fixithealthcare.com/. The FIXIT movies have extensive (and useful) footnotes, available at https://fixithealthcare.com/about/movie-footnotes/
- FIXIT Healthcare at the Tipping Point
- Big Pharma – Market Failure
- Canadian Health – Debunking the Myths
- Big Money Agenda – Democracy on the Brink
- Medicare for All – How Do We Pay for It?
- Medicare for All – Uncovering the Truth
- “The Healthcare Movie” –http://thehealthcaremovie.net/home/
- “The Time is Now – Healthcare for Everybody” – https://nowisthetimemovie.net/home/buy-now/
- “Find the Common Ground”, Ed Weisbart, MD, a speaker and instructor for Physicians for a National Health Program, spoke to LWV HCR4US on June 16, 2020, about how to tailor your communication to a conservative audience, whether one person or a room-full. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ph95zfRvE4&feature=emb_logo
- “Progressive Persuasions: Speaking Beyond the Choir”, Ed Weisbart, MD, PNHP-MO, Webinar (playback)
- “Medicare for All Means Choice”, Abdul El-Sayed, MD
- Cartoons from Healthy California Campaign–We have permission to share these “schoolhouse rock” type animations freely, or modify to represent your state. “The Middleman”, “Better than Before”, “Less” , “Piece of Legislation”.
- Public Service message for Medicare for All, “Harvey & Laverne” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxGrDqygLUw. Using a formula from prior anti-Medicare for All campaigns in the 1990s (Harry and Louise), a young couple goes through the unfavorable myths about M4A, one by one. See the paperwork in the foreground of the picture (above)? Guess where it ends up.
- Don’t neglect homemade videos. (Our video chairperson uses “vibby” to make useful clips from longer videos.) https://www.vibby.com/
- See what’s posted at the LWV Health Care Reform YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/c/LWVHealthCareReform
Books
- “Deadly Spin,” by Wendell Potter, former insurance company insider, Bloomsbury Press, 2010. Subtitle: How corporate PR is killing health care and deceiving Americans. Potter describes in intimate detail how insurance companies manipulate public opinion in the service of shareholders, with deceptive studies and sympathetic media types calculated to mislead.
- “The Healing of America”, by T. R. Reid, Penguin Books, 2009. Reid travels the world with a bum shoulder getting diagnoses and treatment plans (and timetables) in a dozen countries (France, England, Germany, Japan, India etc.) to get an apples-to-apples comparison of different health care systems from a patient’s perspective.
- “The Great American Health Care Scam. How Kickbacks, Collusion, & Propaganda Have Exploded Health Care Costs in the United States.” by David Belk, MD, published 2020. From Belk’s website: “I thought [it] was an obvious question: …What do all the products of healthcare actually cost? …How much do they really cost?” This is what he found: “No one appears to know what anything costs–not the people buying (the patient), not the people selling (the doctors and hospitals). …If no one knows what these costs are, how can this ‘market” be “free’?”
- “Pharma, Greed, Lies, and the Poisoning of America,” by Gerald Posner, New York Times best-selling author and frequent TV commentator. Simon & Schuster, 2020. A “who-done-it” tracing the rise of OxyContin, the narcotic painkiller at the center of the opioid crisis and the Sackler family’s dishonest role in creating the crisis.
HANDOUTS & CHEAT SHEETS
(some documents in Word format as well as pdf so you can edit them more easily for your needs)
- From LWV-La Plata County (CO)
- Twelve-page booklet “Achieving Affordable, Accessible & Equitable Quality Healthcare for Every American.” In color, for printing front and back, collated. LaPlata_lwv-healthcare-booklet-2022.pdf
- From LWV-AZ (NW Maricopa County)
- Tri-fold brochure “Improved and Expanded Medicare for All FACTS”, outside/front and back and inside.
- Q-and-A Handbook, “Facts vs. Myths for a Better Understanding of Medicare for All, Problems, Solutions, and How YOU Fit In,” 4-20-19 (21 pages)
- Comparison Sheet “Single Payer/Medicare for All vs. Public Options”
- “How Will Single Payer/Medicare for All be Paid For?”
- Professional tri-fold brochure for the movie “Big Money Agenda: Democracy on the Brink” from the producers of FIXIT, https://fixithealthcare.com/
- Poster from Dr. Marc Sapir of “Mad as Hell Doctors”, HR 1384, Fact check the truth”.
- From LWV-MA (in conjunction with Western Mass Medicare for All) “What is Single Payer?” (Printed so it can be folded in 4)
- From Public Citizen https://www.citizen.org/topic/health-care/ “Single Payer Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)s”
- Bookmark HCR4US: front and back
- Resource list from Maureen Cruise (CA Nurses Assoc., LA Chapter Health Care for All, AllCare Alliance, LA Health Care Coalition) July 2019, Some overlap with this listing, a few new items, fits on one 2-sided page.
- Comparison Chart for COVID19 from PNHP, Medicare for All vs. the Status Quo
- Poster from Mad4MedicareAds
- Improved Medicare for All” sticker template
- Medicare for All wallet-card front & Back. (This card, from HC4A-CA, was for a bill that died in committee. It’s still a good idea, and not too hard to make for other states or other bills.)
PRESENTATIONS AND POWERPOINTS (to share)
- America’s Choices for Healthcare – Myths vs. Facts” LWVAZ NW Maricopa Co.
- “Where democratic presidential candidates stand on healthcare reform?” The Henry J Kaiser Family Foundation slide presentation
- “Where presidential candidates stood on healthcare reform” – update as of 3-16-20 (NWMC-AZ).
- Presentation on Health Care Racial Disparities by David Williams (Harvard School of Public Health)
- Short PowerPoint from PNHP (selection of 20 slides) “Persistent Racial Disparities”
- “Why Physicians Like Medicare for All” (Short PowerPoint – 8 slides) from PNHP
- COVID19 and Medicare for All slide set by SNaHP (Students for a National Health Plan)
- Marc Sapir, MD, MPH speaks out against Medicare Advantage
- “Soup to Nuts” from LWV Metro-Phoenix – a little old, but starts with good tips for preparing for the presentation.
- “How to Persuade the American Public”, (PowerPoint) Jeanne Nicholson, RN, of OnePayerStates.org, provides a reminder to keep the values of our audience in mind when presenting the case for Single Payer/Medicare for All.
TOOLKITS (and Other)
- Organizing “Tool Kit” for Activists – Steps to Pass a Municipal or Town Resolution in Support of Improved Medicare for All
- Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) 2020 Kitchen Table Campaign
- Don McCanne “Quote of the Day” , now called the “Health Justice Monitor,” with an expanded editorial board (Jim Kahn, Steffie Woolhandler, David Himmelstein, Adam Gaffney, Eagan Kemp and others). You can subscribe and also view the archive at the link.
ORGANIZATIONS
The websites of these organizations have particularly rich treasures for the activist. Check ‘em out.
- The Henry J Kaiser Family Foundation, www.kff.org
- Physicians for a National Health Plan (PNHP), https://pnhp.org/
- Commonwealth Fund, CommonwealthFund.org
- Medicare for All Y’all – https://healthcareforallyall.org
- Healthcare-Now!, Healthcare-NOW.org
- One Payer States http://onepayerstates.org/
- Business for Medicare for All https://www.businessformedicareforall.org/
- Health Over Profit (HOPE) – http://www.healthoverprofit.org
- Public Citizen – https://www.citizen.org/case-for-medicare-for-all
- National Nurses United – www.nationalnursesunited.org/medicare-for-all
