OpEdNews - Articles - Author's Page for Donna Smith

Healthcare reform activist; Appeared in Michael Moore's SiCKO; Founder, American Patients United;
National Co-chair, PDA (Progressive Democrats of America)Healthcare Not Warfare campaign; Community organizer, California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee.
Married to Larry Smith, 33 years; mother of six and grandmother to 14.
Graduate, Colorado College, 1985.
Writing is my passion -- mostly political pieces, sometimes human interest.
I belive healthcare is a basic human right. I believe that the American people are champions of basic human rights and that we will win universal healthcare in my lifetime.
My political hero was and is Sen. Tom Daschle (former U.S. Senate majority leader from South Dakota) because of his personal decency to me when I was a constituent. Though I have not always agreed completely with him, and he has made the hugest mistake, he never looked down his nose at any person of lesser station in life. I wish he had fully paid his taxes and that we were engaged together in the fight for healthcare for all.
I was born and raised in suburban Chicago, but have lived in the western U.S, for most of my adult life until returning to Chicago in February 2008 to work for CNA/NNOC. Now I am relocating to Washington, DC, to work more directly on healthcare reform issues.

OpEdNews Member for 68 week(s) and 0 day(s)

8 Articles, 0 Quick Links, 2 Comments, 0 Diaries, 0 Polls

8 Articles

Friday, June 12, 2009
The Pompous or the Populists: Who Will Win the Healthcare Debate?
(2 comments) You'd think after eight long and ugly years listening to pompous and wealthy officials slam their versions of social hatred down our gullets, we'd have sent those folks packing for good on January 20, 2009. You'd think.

Saturday, May 9, 2009
Happy Mother's Day from America's Health Insurance Plans and Mr. Baucus
(2 comments) Wow. America's Health insurance Plan's (AHIP) czar -- and the woman our Congress and president have anointed as the nation's architect of health reform -- has offered a gift to all of America's moms and women. The health insurance industry will stop charging you more - they'll stop discriminating against you - so long as all of you are legally forced to buy their product.

Friday, March 20, 2009
Will Congress Pass Ponzi Healthcare? Let's Say 'No' in Des Moines
(2 comments) We will get what we allow Congress to pass.

Saturday, February 28, 2009
A Mother Asks President Obama To Be Honest About Healthcare
(5 comments) We need honesty going forward. We need full disclosure of our options. We need courage and clarity. And we cannot have that if this President and this Congress participate is a pre-choreographed dance to reward the big health industry interests at the expense of the rest of us.

Saturday, February 7, 2009
The Big, Bad Joke of Healthcare Reform
(30 comments) Healthcare policy discussions and formal hearings underway in D.C. are not filled with the sounds of crafting policies to guarantee what candidate Barack Obama termed a human right. Instead, they center on "benefit connectors" and "cost containment" or "reinsurance" and "tiered benefits" or "payment incentives and physician bonus opportunities." Few walk the healthcare-is-a-human-right talk.

Sunday, January 18, 2009
The Horror of Healthcare in America
(2 comments) The reality is we know having health insurance is not being protected in this nation. It is simply a hedge against being turned away at the door or labeled less worthy of the best care because our financial standing does not hold us in the best stead with our providers. Having health insurance doesn't protect us from financial ruin or even from being denied a life-saving treatment.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008
A Suspension of Our National Soul
(2 comments) Not only have we bitten off our own heads, we've set aside our souls just on the hope of great wealth. We've let those with big bank balances and big real estate holdings convince us that they also have big brains to fix the big mess and better judgment somehow than the everyday neighbors who must balance much more pressure on much less in resources.

Monday, August 11, 2008
The DNC's 'Guaranteed Healthcare' Reality Check
(10 comments) How the DNC helped negotiate the "guaranteed healthcare for all" language for its platform

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