Join activist leaders from Long Island this coming Thurs. Aug. 1^st at 1 p.m. for a one-hour zoom meeting to hear about and discuss plans for standing up the “Vote for Health Care!” project in NY-4, from now through Election Day.

• https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82152312000
• Meeting ID: 821 5231 2000
• One tap mobile: +16465588656,,82152312000# US (New York)
• Dial by your location:  +1 646 558 8656 US (New York)

Meeting co-hosts:

• Health Care for America Now - New York State Network
• Long Island Progressive Coalition
• Metro New York Health Care for All

Earlier this summer, the New York State Network of Health Care for America Now launched its 2024 edition of their “Vote for Health Care!” (V4HC) project that happens every 2 years during the federal election cycle. Because health care is always a top-tier and motivational issue for voters, and health care issues poll VERY strongly across the political spectrum, V4HC aims to engage everyday people on “what’s at stake” for health care in this year’s elections, and set the stage for our next President and Congress. The V4HC project aims to get people registered to vote, help them understand key health care issues, and candidates positions and statements on them, and then turn people out at the polls.

V4HC is prioritizing strategic “swing” congressional districts across New York where there are first-term incumbents, and NY-4 is the main one for the Downstate region. The idea is to make health care a key issue to turn out voters, and also create a mandate for a health care agenda for the next President and Congress to then act upon (whoever wins.) Obviously, some candidates are more supportive of and/or sympathetic to our issues and others less so (if not outright opposed), but V4HC is non-partisan 501c3 campaign. (501c4s are also welcome to join in, respecting 501c3 boundaries.) We CAN inform voters about the candidates’ records and positions, explain key health care issues and what they mean for everyday people and our families and communities, and then get folks to the polls.

Three years ago in Fall 2021 as part of the national "Build Back Better" campaign, various progressive groups in NY-3 and NY-4 came together under the “NY-3&4 Health Care Action” umbrella to build support for President Biden and Speaker Pelosi’s “Build Back Better Act” that was stalled in the House -- health care issues were prominent in the debate.  We focused on Rep. Tom Suozzi and Rep. Kathleen Rice who were both wavering on the bill – Suozzi over his demand to restore the full SALT deduction that had been curtailed by the 2017 Trump tax cut bill, and Rice over her support for the drug industry’s opposition to establishing Rx drug price negotiations in the US. In the end, both did vote for the bill, which only passed by 7 votes on a completely partisan basis, and it became the basis for the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) that was enacted the following year – we made an important difference!

Please join us for this important zoom meeting. If you can’t make it, please arrange for someone from your group to participate.