BOSTON/State House steps - They came with a cake Thursday to celebrate the 44th birthday of the federal Medicare program.

About thirty union organizers and members of organizations such as Democratic Socialists of America (Boston Chapter), Jobs with Justice, MA Nurses Association, Physicians for a National Health Program, and others, spoke out in favor of using the best aspects of the Medicare program as a model to craft effective and comprehensive health care reform in the U.S. and Massachusetts.

Medicare itself, some said, could use an overhaul. But activists - many of whom favor a single payer approach, and an end to insurance company control of the health financing system - expressed confidence that the decades old program designed to help older Americans pay for health care, should be the starting point for Congress and the President in their negotiations over a national reform bill.

The following audio includes Rand Wilson, Communications Coordinator for the AFL-CIO Organizing Department's Center for Strategic Research, artists and elder activists Elizabeth McKIm and Maria Termini, Lawrence family physician, Dr. Robert McKersie of Physicians for a National Health Program, Robert Gaw of the National Association of Socially Responsible Organizations, and Grace Ross of the MA Alliance Against Predatory Lending.

OMB Audio: Medicare Birthday Rally, July 30, 2009

Web Resources:

http://www.workinglife.org/users/index.php?home=RandWilson
http://www.pnhp.org/
http://www.nasro-co-op.com/
http://www.maapl.info/
http://www.massjwj.net/
http://www.dsaboston.org/
http://www.massnurses.org/

Photos by Dave Goodman