A couple days ago, I was lamenting the state of the healthcare debate to my wife. In the public debate, and in the legislative chambers, the HMOs and conservative ideologues are kicking our asses. By “our,” I mean anyone in America with a pulse. Makes me depressed.

The very next day, my wife sent me the op-ed below, written by her father for his local paper. Dr. Jay Kaplan has been advocating for reform for decades. It’s inspiring to see that advocacy take form in a well-articulated public statement.

Bravo, Dr. Jay!

Why We Need Health Care Reform
Jay Kaplan, M.D.

I am a primary care physician and have been practicing for almost thirty years. I have had the opportunity to experience the many changes in health care over these years. The very positive changes are offset by the fact that many Americans lack health coverage. This group of nearly 50 million people includes recent college graduates looking for their first job, workers who own their own business, the recently unemployed, day laborers, and a host of other people.

Without health insurance, a major medical problem can quickly lead to bankruptcy. Doctors are reluctant to care for the uninsured due to the great liability issues in this country. The inappropriate use of the emergency rooms by the insured and uninsured alike greatly increase the overall cost of health care.

The cost of health care insurance has increased yearly. The use of generic drugs, decreased hospital stays, and the expansion of HMO’s has failed to control health care costs. Insurance companies deny coverage for patients with pre-existing conditions that make many uninsurable. Reports show that Americans pay the most for health care in the world yet health care charts do not place us near the top with regard to outcome data. We must demand coverage for all and better efficiencies with decreased costs. Incentives for preventative care for all patients are needed.

Our technology in medicine is very advanced with CT and PET scans, robotic surgery and very sophisticated ICU’s. With all the state of the art machines, we lack in fundamental health information systems that link doctors to specialists to hospitals. Often our privacy policies prevent the transfer of this essential information. How efficient is our information system when we cannot even identify the patient’s primary care physician? Why are medical reports not automatically sent from the emergency room to the correct primary care doctor? Why are patients in the VA system going to the VA Hospital to obtain their medications and again to their local physician for medical care at a double expense to the health care system? Why does Medicare not cover a yearly preventative physical for the population who is most in need of preventative therapy?

Data generated by the Red Cross, life insurance companies and worker’s compensation companies are often not shared with the patient or his personal physician. This expensive data is lost in the system and more often than not, repeated.

Public programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and the VA system provide quality healthcare for the elderly, poor and members of our armed forces. These programs work but there are many inefficiencies. Why are all the health care providers aware of these basic problems but the people who make the laws are not? We all hear about the $1000 wheelchairs, the $100 canes and the $10 aspirins. I am sorry to report that the system is as bad today as it was 30 years ago.

We need more primary care physicians. I suggest asking all the medical students in training programs how many plan to spend their time working in an expensive, inefficient system with high overhead and increased liability. The crisis is noted by the lack of obstetric physicians in certain areas. The ER’s and walk-in clinics keep expanding. This is not an efficient way to provide coordinated healthcare. We must encourage healthy life styles, diet, exercise and smoking cessation. People have to be more responsible for their own health. Inappropriate lawsuits do not help the system.

If done correctly, we should be able to recreate a better system. Discussion, not obstruction will enhance the health care system for all of us.

I just gave $25 to Tim DeChristopher, aka “Bidder 70.” You should too.

Tim pulled off a ballsy, smart, inspiring act of environmental civil disobedience. He needs $45,000 to close the deal. He’s gotten $21,614 in donations in the past 4 days. I bet you’ll give your $25, too, once you hear his story. The facts:

On Election Day 2008, the Bureau of Land Management announced that it would auction off drilling rights to huge swaths of land in Utah, near Arches National Park. Beautiful country, up on the auction block to the highest oil company bidder. Not pretty, but pretty sneaky — they thought an Election Day announcement would fly under the radar screen, and the oil companies could snatch up the public land without anyone noticing.

Conservationists noticed. They (including my good friend Celia Alario) quickly started a campaign to keep the lands wild. They raised a ruckus, they challenged the BLM, they created Facebook pages. But the auction didn’t get derailed.

So a group of 200 protesters showed up at the auction itself. Tim was there. But instead of holding a sign and shouting, Tim checked himself into the auction … as a bidder. He got paddle number 70. When the auction started, his civil disobedience started. He didn’t shout. He didn’t lock himself to a table. He didn’t throw his size 10 shoes at the auctioneer and call him a dog. He just bid.

And won.

Tim ended up “winning” $1.7 million of leases, or about 22,500 acres. It took that long for the authorities to realize that the unaffiliated, 27-year-old newcomer was buying EVERY SINGLE PLOT. When they did, federal agents stopped the auction. They took Tim into custody. He may face federal charges.

But before that, he has the opportunity to actually buy the land. Or at least put down deposits on it. That is, if we help him.

Tim needs $45,000 for the first round of deposits, which he and his lawyers have agreed is the best way to keep the land drill-free. Why did I give him my $25? Mostly to reward his brilliant, ballsy creativity. And also because if folks like me think that wild lands should remain wild, there are times when we need to put our money on the line.

In fact, I could imagine a whole new wave of online eco-activism sprouting up around BLM auctions. One could use an application like PledgeBank to gather thousands of dollars in pledges for wild lands. Then an agent representing the pledgers would attend a BLM auction. If that agent won an auction, the pledgers would fulfill their obligation to buy the land. And voila, the land stays free.

Not a bad idea, right? I nominate Tim DeChristoper to be our agent!

Read more, and pony up your $25, at Bidder70.org.

Last weekend I got together with a group of progressive campaigners to celebrate Obama’s victory. A story emerged from the weekend that has been ricocheting around in my mind.

On Saturday night, after a great meal and perhaps a little too much wine, we started making toasts. One of those toasts turned into a semi-silly, semi-sober, semi-sonorous singing of This Land Is Your Land. The song came straight from our hearts. For a group of Gen-Xers steeped in irony and not given to public displays of patriotism, it was an unusual moment.

Right after the singing stopped, one of the singers felt an unexpected swell of emotion. The feeling was so strong, he told us later, that even though it was nearly midnight, he felt compelled to call his father. He got his Dad on the phone, and immediately thanked him. See, his Dad (and Mom) had immigrated to the U.S. from Columbia when he was three years old. They fled harsh violence, and sought opportunity. In many ways, a classic America story, reflected in the histories of so many millions of us.

For much of his life, our friend had taken his adopted country for granted. In fact, as a committed progressive, he had long felt critical of America’s shortcomings, especially under the Bush administration. But at the moment of singing This Land is Your Land, something broke through, a swell of pride and thankfulness. He couldn’t hold back from thanking his dad, for allowing him to grow up in a country where the son of a Kenyan father and Kansan mother could become president.

This story stays with me, because I feel it too — pride, mixed with thanksgiving. I feel proud of my role leading Vote Today Ohio, and helping to elect our first African American president. I feel proud of America, for choosing hope over hate. And I finally feel the words that I sung on Saturday, that I’ve sung hundreds of times before — this land is my land.

Sometimes getting shut out gives you a big in.

Yesterday afternoon, a throng of activists gathered at Fox News headquarters in Manhattan to protest Fox’s racist coverage of the Obamas. From comments like “baby mama” to “terrorist fist jab” to “lynching party,” Fox commentators have set a pattern of using racial slurs against the Obamas, in a thinly-veiled attempt to make them appear like outsiders in their own country. It’s offensive to Black Americans, and to all Americans.

The protest contingency was led by someone who has inspired and entertained me for years — hip-hop legend Nas. Ever since Fox’s Bill O’Reilly started attacking Nas on air, Nas has fought back, hard. Yesterday, he teamed up with ColorofChange.org and MoveOn.org to deliver 620,127 petitions to Fox, calling on the network to Stop the Racist Smears.

Video of the event:

I had the privilege of running the ground operations for the event. Despite many variables and deeply hostile Fox security, we pulled it off without a hitch. The major media coverage was fantastic (search Google News for “fox nas” for a taste).

The protest started at 2:00, but didn’t crescendo until 11:30 that night. Fox, in true Fox fashion, refused to accept the 620,127 petitions. Wouldn’t even let us step foot on Fox property. We organizers didn’t expect such a flat out refusal. But then another idea struck — if we couldn’t deliver the petitions to Fox, why not take them to where they could have even more impact … the Colbert Report.

Nas was already scheduled to appear on Colbert to promote his new album, which just hit #1 on the charts. Instead of talking beats and rhymes, Nas took the opportunity to turn up the heat in his well-known feud with “Poppa Bear” (Colbert’s affectionate name for Bill O’Reilly). And since Fox had rejected our 620,127 petitions, Nas brought them to the Colbert Studio, and actually made them part of the set.

Yep, Nas and Stephen Colbert conducted their interview sitting on the ColorofChange petitions. Could you dream up better placement for a protest prop?

Lesson: Fox shot itself in the face by not just quietly taking our petitions and hiding them in a dumpster. Instead, our message got amplified to every Colbert viewer in the country, and made Fox look like the race-baiting antagonists they are. A media and organizing coup!

Move over, MoveOn — a Pakistan NGO is crushing your petition record.

As of this post, the Yeh Hum Naheen Foundation has collected 8,33,069 petition signatures from Pakistanis who are vocally reject terrorism in all forms. The Say No To Terrorism petition was launched by a coalition of popular Pakistani singers, artists and celebrities, bankrolled by a moderate Pakistani financier. It’s a multimedia blowout campaign centered around a catchy song – kinda like “We Are the World,” but against terrorism, not hunger.

I’m struck by the sheer size of this effort. Eight million is an EPIC number. Google tells me that the largest petition ever collected reached 22 million (though I can’t figure out what it was). The Say No To Terrorism petition seems likely to challenge, and possibly break that record. Compare this to the average online petition here in the states. A hugely successful online petition will get a million signatories. MoveOn’s entire list is about 3 million. Say No To Terrorism has more than doubled MoveOn’s entire list in a week.

Granted, the Foundation has hired 6,000 “volunteers” to canvas Pakistan and collect signatures. That should keep the numbers streaming steadily in. The multimedia hype in Pakistan is apparently huge, so the campaign’s visibility is penetrating deep. And the ask is pretty impossible to turn down. Who WOULDN’T sign a statement against terrorism in a terror-wracked nation?

Still, this is an attention-worthy number, a true outpouring of public sentiment. Like the most successful online organizing campaigns here in the states, this effort has clearly hit perfectly fertile ground at a perfect time with a perfect message.

The big question in my mind is, what will the Yeh Hum Naheen Foundation do with its huge list? Do they have any online organizing experience? Savvy? Should they be getting advice from Avaaz and MoveOn?

Expect to see this story break in the American media soon.

(NB – as of July 26, the petition count has reached 23 million. Crazy!)

This is a heartwarmer.

Darcy Burner, a progressive congressional candidate from outside Seattle, has long been a favorite of the netroots crowd. On Tuesday, Darcy’s house burned down. To the ground. Lost everything. Her husband, son and dog survived. The cat died.

Having worked on a heated congressional race like Darcy’s, I wouldn’t be surprised if a tragedy like this ended her candidacy. Campaigns can take a huge personal toll. Fires can take a huge personal toll. Together, those tolls could be too much.

But Darcy ran out of her house wearing this t-shirt:

That logo on her shirt is programmer code for “end war.” Six small characters that proved, even at her most vulnerable moment, that Darcy is both an anti-war crusader AND a big nerd. In other words, the perfect fit for the netroots blogger crowd.

Daily Kos’s Markos Moulitsas picked up on this image and used it to start a firestorm of fundraising for Darcy. He wrote, “Darcy is a huge netroots sensation because she is truly one of us — a former Microsoft exec who is a geek at heart … Darcy needs to raise about $150,000 this July … and everyday she takes off makes her campaign budget that much harder to hit. That’s about $5,000 a day. And that’s why I’m joining with bloggers nationwide to ask our readers to contribute what they can today, to help give Darcy the breathing room she needs to tend to her own affairs without worrying about neglecting her campaign.”

As of today, the effort has netted almost $100,000 through Kos’s “Orange to Blue” Act Blue page, including $100 from me. I ponied up because the Congress will be a better place with Darcy in it. But also because I appreciate innovative, interesting online organizing asks. I especially appreciate times when progressives rapidly respond to emotional moments, and harness powerful, touching narratives to advance our agenda. Bravo to the Kos community for getting beyond dry, intellectual arguments and creatively going for the heartstrings. If we did more of that, maybe we could /war a little sooner!

If you have 38 minutes, watch Barack Obama’s sweeping, historic, honest speech about race and progressive values in America. If you don’t have the time now, find the time. Soon.

Many have already praised the content of the speech, the reaction to the speech, the game-changing nature of the speech. But I haven’t yet seen an appreciation of the political stagecraft that made the speech truly great.

Consider this. Barack Obama could have given that speech any time. The fact that he wrote the speech in less than two days, amidst the most grueling campaign trail imaginable, means he’d already formulated the arguments long before. He could have given this speech during Black History Month. He could have given at the DNC in 2004. Hell, he probably could have given it when he started writing Dreams of My Father a decade ago.

But he didn’t. He didn’t give the speech any of those times … because the media echo chamber wasn’t ready. No, “ready” is the wrong word — hungry. Barack withheld the speech until the mainstream media was hungry for it. Starving for it. Famished for an opportunity to dissects its every word. And then he whipped the soup even more, “leaking” news to the press that he was writing a “milestone” speech, a speech that would address the controversy over his pastor. You could almost hear the press corps drooling.

In their hunger, the fell over themselves to give him a stage — 38 uninterrupted minutes of a bio-historic epic speech. About race in America. Race! When was the last time you’ve heard even 38 seconds of intelligent discussion about race on TV?

There is no skill more valuable in a political campaign than the pivot. Taking a threatening controversy (Pastor Wright) and turning it into a huge, guaranteed audience for a brilliant, historic speech about race relations in America … if that’s not a masterful pivot, I don’t know what is.

This morning on the train I opened the New York Times to find a special section called “Giving,” with a fascinating article called “Giving Away Money, Getting an Education.”

The upshot: A small foundation near Boston, the Crossroads Community Foundation, lets high school students give its money away. Teams of students read grant proposals, make site visits, argue over priorities and then dole out grants of $3k-$5k to about a dozen groups.

The money here is almost irrelevant. The point is to train young philanthropists. Most of these young “donors” are from rich white suburbs, and someday will be in a position to give their own money away. If you train them young in the ways of charity, the theory goes, you’ll create lifelong giving habits.

A good idea. But what if you took it even further? What if, instead of letting rich white kids give away the money, you let poor kids of color give it away … in their own neighborhoods? What if the “donors” were part of the affected community? What would happen if you flipped the paternalism of charity on its head?

It makes me think back to when I was in college, and I was chosen to be a “Writing Fellow.” We were juniors and seniors who taught freshman and sophmores how to write. We actually had impact on other people’s grades (and their futures) so we took our jobs seriously. The training was brutally intensive. We de- and re-constructed the art of writing in a thousand different ways. We practiced, we critiqued, we studied, we theorized, all in order to teach writing better. All in order to teach our fellow students.

Well, guess who learned most from the Writing Fellows program? Not the underclassmen we so earnestly wanted to serve. It was us, the Fellows, who really learned how to write.

And at the end of the semester, our professor made a startling suggestion. Writing Fellows were supposed to be the best writers in the school, she told us, chosen because we already had exemplary writing skills. “But,” she said, “Wouldn’t it be clever of us to take some terrible writers, tell them they’re the best, give them intense training, and see if we could turn bad writers in great writers … and great teachers?”

High expectations, accountability to others and deep training. It works.

That’s what would happen, I suspect, if a foundation allowed people in disadvantaged communities to give away money. The “donors” would probably get more than they gave, in pride, in wisdom, in social conscience. You could go as far as letting dropouts, addicts, even prisoners — yes, convicted criminals — give away the money. In fact, that’s a pretty dope idea. Those on the lowest rungs of socio-political ladder would have the most to gain from investing in others.

Let prisoners make charitable decisions? I can hear the critics now. I bet the same folks would say that a group of kids can’t make real decisions about charitable donations. To which the Times answers:

Crossroads executive director Judy Salerno said her board had never overturned a student team’s recommendation. The lesson? “When you give them adult responsibility, they rise to the occasion,” she said.

Swap the words “citizens” for “students” and “community” for “adult” and you’ve got a whole new bottom-up vision of philanthropy.

A great quote just landed in my inbox, courtesy of my friend Michael Dorsey:

“I hope we shall… crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country.”

- THOMAS JEFFERSON

Nuff said.

My friend Alex Steffan of WorldChanging asked me for money. It was in a novel way, and for a very worthy cause, so I’m posting the ask here.

Alex wrote:

I need to hit you up for some money. Not much, only $10, but still, your donation is critical for us, and here’s why.

Yahoo! is offering a $50,000 matching grant for the nonprofit which gets the largest number of donations before the end of the year using its new “charity badges.”

What matters is not the number of dollars, but the number of donors. Right now, you need 70 to be in the lead, but things are moving fast and we’d like 500 to be safe. If we’re winning on Dec 31st, we think one of our major donors may step in and help us with a large donation, so we’ll get the full $50K from Yahoo! $100,000 would be a major portion of our annual budget and you can help us win it.

That means that what we need are numbers. Even large numbers of people contributing the minimum of $10 each (though we are a highly-effective little non-profit and would be happy to put a larger contribution to good use).

Please help us by taking two minutes right now, clicking on the donate button in this link, and making a contribution to Worldchanging on Network for Good (it’s all safe and self-explanatory.)

I’m always intrigued by healthy online competitions, because they seem to consistently drive interest and traffic. They never get old. It’s an ancient trick that has translated extremely well into the online world, especially with instant feedback loops and transparency.

Since I’m currently reading Vonnegut’s “Galapagos” I’m a little fixated on healthy competition…