If you've missed previous opportunities to tell your Congressfolk to pass H.R. 1384/S. 1129, the Medicare for All Act, then Peoples Action still helps you do that. What would we gain by expanding Medicare to include all Americans -- you know, besides better and cheaper health care that leaves no good Americans out in the cold? We would get more power over our lives! How much power do you have over your health insurer when they slam you with a surprise bill? Can you go get yourself a better health insurance corporation? Not when you get health insurance through your job, and not when a mere five health insurance corporations cover over half of all insured, and not when buying insurance by yourself would cost you a lot more than what you're paying now. Now what would happen if your government slammed you with a surprise bill? You can fight that -- you can embarrass them in the media, and you might be able to get people fired, or even get people voted out. All we need, as Americans, is a fighting chance. The Medicare for All Act would help give us one.
Meanwhile, our Administration, ever sensitive to big ag bosses and their need for gilded plumbing in their 19th vacation homes, has proposed slashing federal pork inspectors by 40%, so that big ag corporations don't "suffer" from the PR headaches of poisoned food, never mind how much the rest of us actually suffer from poisoned food. Food poisoning is one of the few things that can get substantial coverage from our drama-addicted media, so naturally this Administration wants to relieve them of their responsibility not to make their customers sick. Also, our Administration would let big ag corporations use their own employees instead of federal inspectors -- think their employees might have some incentive not to anger their bosses with news of pus and bile and feces in their meat? -- and would speed up slaughter inspection lines because of course they would. Hence CREDO helps you tell our Department of Agriculture to abandon its plans to cut inspection workers and let more big ag corporations to inspect their own meat.
Finally, you love getting surprise fees on your cable bill, right? Well, H.R. 1220, the TRUE Fees Act, would make that a less ubiquitous occurence by forcing big telecom corporations to include most of their fees in their advertised price and to break down their electronic bills so that the consumer can see all the fees and taxes in their bill. The bill would also make big telecom corporations give consumers at least 21 days' notice before jacking up any fees, and if any consumers don't like it, they can end their contract with those big telecoms without any penalties. (Admittedly that latter part would mean more if big telecoms didn't have monopolies in most areas.) And the bill would also void forced arbitration clauses in customer contracts; we should get rid of forced arbitration clauses (which, as you likely know, deny you your day in court and put you in a "court" more to the corporation's liking) every chance we get. So Consumer Reports helps you tell your Congressfolk to support price transparency by passing the TRUE Fees Act.
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