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For Immediate Release
March, 31 2014, 02:19pm EDT
Contact:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020, (202) 421-6858; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167
ACA "Conscientious Objector"
WASHINGTON
CBS News reports: "March 31 has finally arrived, and with it comes the last official day for people to sign up for health insurance on the federal exchange websites."
"MARGARET FLOWERS, M.D., (410) 591-0892, mdpnhp@gmail.com, @MFlowers8
Flowers is a pediatrician in Baltimore and co-director of ItsOurEconomy.us. She just wrote the piece "Why I Am A Conscientious Objector To The ACA," which states: "I have been an outspoken advocate for a Medicare for all health system. During the health reform process, I did all that I could to push for single payer, including being arrested three times for civil disobedience. I was one of fifty doctors who filed a brief in the Supreme Court which expressed opposition to forcing people to buy private health insurance, a defective product. It pains me to see that the Affordable Care Act siphons billions of public dollars to create more bureaucracy and transfers hundreds of billions of public dollars directly to the private insurance industry when I know that those dollars should be paying for the health care that so many in our country desperately need.
"I am currently uninsured, so I have to make a choice. I don't qualify for Medicaid and I'm too young for Medicare. By law, I am required to buy private insurance or pay a penalty. But I find myself in the position of not being able to do either. I can't in good conscience give money to the health insurance industry that I am fighting to eliminate. And I can't in good conscience pay a tax penalty that will be given to that industry. So, I am going to be a Conscientious Objector to the ACA. ...
"Focusing solely on the number of people who are insured is what the private health insurance industry wants the public to believe is most important. The industry spent tremendous amounts of money and time to get a law that would force people to buy insurance in order to protect and enhance their assets. They want everyone to buy their products and to make people feel reckless or irresponsible if they don't. This is a massive campaign to distract people from asking the questions that really matter, such as whether people with insurance will be able to afford health care, whether bankruptcies from medical debt will continue and whether overall health outcomes will improve.
"In the United States, having health insurance does not guarantee access to necessary health care. In fact, rather than creating health security, the ACA is degrading health care coverage in the U.S. It is also creating the largest transfer of public dollars to a private industry ever, as UNITE HERE reports, 'most of the ACA's $965 billion in subsidies will go directly to commercial insurance companies.'"
Flowers recently debated Dean Baker on the ACA on The Real News.
A nationwide consortium, the Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA) represents an unprecedented effort to bring other voices to the mass-media table often dominated by a few major think tanks. IPA works to broaden public discourse in mainstream media, while building communication with alternative media outlets and grassroots activists.
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Progressive Caucus Leader Urges 'Yes' Vote on Amendment to End US Military Aid to Israel
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After House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries blew what one organizer called “a real opportunity... to show he’s listening” to the Democratic Party’s base by opposing an amendment to end US military aid to Israel, the head of the Congressional Progressive Caucus on Tuesday urged colleagues to support the measure.
As Common Dreams reported earlier Tuesday, Jeffries (D-NY) announced in a "dear colleague" letter that he would oppose Rep. Thomas Massie's (R-Ky.) amendment to a national security spending bill that would eliminate the $3.3 billion in annual foreign military financing provided to Israel’s military under a memorandum of understanding signed by then-President Barack Obama in 2016.
The US has also given billions of dollars in additional armed aid to Israel since it began waging its US-backed war on Gaza after the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023.
The minority leader called the amendment "overly broad" and said it would limit the US' ability to "confront Hamas."
Jeffries' letter came "just weeks after his fundraising committee received the largest earmarked disbursement in the history of AIPAC's political action committee," Sludge's Donald Shaw reported Tuesday, referring to the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, the congressman's single-largest campaign donor.
Massie's effort comes just weeks after the Republican-controlled House of Representatives blocked a separate amendment introduced by the Kentucky Republican and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) to remove a provision of the proposed $1.15 trillion National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for 2027 that would establish a formal “United States–Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative," which critics argue deepens military integration between the two allies under the guise of reducing aid.
Responding to Jeffries' letter, Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) Chair Greg Casar (D-Texas) sent one of his own, contending that "the American people are crying out for an end to US tax dollars subsidizing Israel’s military."
"At a time when millions are struggling to make ends meet, we are sending billions of dollars to a military that has killed tens of thousands of civilians in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon, destabilized the region, and helped lead us into war with Iran," Casar noted.
"Over the weekend, the Israeli military detained a member of Congress attempting to conduct oversight in the West Bank," his letter continues, referencing a recent incident involving Khanna. "We cannot continue to subsidize this."
Israel's war on Gaza alone has left more than 250,000 Palestinians dead or wounded (including people who are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath rubble) and around 2 million others forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, his former defense minister, are wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, while the International Court of Justice is weighing a genocide case filed against Israel by South Africa and formally backed by nearly 20 nations.
United Nations experts; Israeli and international scholars, jurists, and human rights groups; and US lawmakers including Casar are among those who have concluded that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
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"The Democratic Party needs a new approach to Israel and Palestine," Casar stressed. "When Democrats retake the majority in November, I hope the Progressive Caucus can help lead our party toward a position that secures safety, dignity, and self-determination for Palestinian and Israeli civilians alike."
Both Casar and the CPC are supporters of the Block the Bombs Act, first introduced in May 2025 by Rep. Delia C. Ramirez (D-Ill.) and now backed by more than 60 lawmakers. The CPC has also endorsed Massie's amendment.
US public opposition to Israel has grown alongside the death toll in Gaza. More than half of Democratic voters surveyed for an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll published last week said they believe Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. An August 2025 Quinnipiac poll found that 60% of respondents opposed additional military aid to Israel, while just 32% supported it. Opposition was especially high among Democrats (75%) and independents (66%).
Noting these figures, the progressive grassroots group RootsAction said Tuesday that "Jeffries has turned his back on nearly 75% of Democrats who say they want military aid to Israel to be halted" and "has chosen instead to side with the Democratic Party old guard—the same dominant faction that lost twice to [President] Donald Trump."
"Jeffries’s stance is morally unconscionable and politically myopic," RootsAction added. "For nearly three years, Israel has committed genocide in Gaza in full view of the world. Polling has shown that the Democratic Party leadership’s inability to distance itself from the onslaught in Gaza cost its candidates many votes in 2024. This pattern will repeat if the party is unable to change its stance."
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A coalition of progressive groups is pressuring Senate Democrats to oppose President Donald Trump's nomination of Jay Clayton III to lead America's spy agencies over his role in helping the administration use the legal system to attack journalists.
Over the weekend, The New York Times reported that Clayton, who currently serves as the US attorney for Manhattan, had issued subpoenas to four of its journalists after they'd reported on security concerns related to the luxury jet gifted by the Qatari government, which Trump has begun to use in place of Air Force One against the wishes of the Secret Service.
The US Department of Justice said in a statement that the goal of the investigation was to prosecute leakers who spoke to the press about the plane's lacking security features. According to the Times, the FBI requested that it hold off publishing the story and reveal the names of its anonymous sources, which it refused to do.
A top newsroom lawyer for the Times described the subpoenas as "an attempt to prevent the public from knowing what is happening in their country by intimidating journalists from doing their jobs.”
On Monday, the group Demand Progress and nearly three dozen other progressive advocacy groups sent a letter to Democrats on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, as well as Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (NY) and Whip Dick Durbin (Ill.).
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"The committee need not speculate how Clayton would exercise the enormous powers of the federal government: He is demonstrating it now," the coalition wrote. "A federal prosecutor who will weaponize the grand jury process against reporters—and their sources—to punish disclosures unwelcome to the president has shown the Senate the precise instinct that is disqualifying in a director of national intelligence."
"Rewarding an official who is actively executing the White House's war on an independent press with the keys to the intelligence community would be a catastrophic mistake," the letter continued.
The coalition emphasized that Clayton, whose confirmation hearing in the Senate is scheduled for Wednesday, has no experience in intelligence work, having spent most of his career as a corporate lawyer on Wall Street. He was tapped to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission during Trump's first term and then to serve as US attorney for the Southern District of New York in his second.
"More troublingly," it said, "Clayton has spent his time in this position weaponizing his authority on behalf of the president, particularly by politicizing high-profile investigations."
As Trump came under fire for his relationship with the late child sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein, Clayton was assigned to "take the lead" of a Department of Justice probe that selectively targeted a list of the president's enemies.
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"Since 1973, the ESA has served as the nation's most effective conservation law, saving numerous imperiled species from extinction and moving them toward recovery," states the complaint, filed in the District of Washington state. It argues that the rescission "defies the text and purpose of the statute, 50 years of administrative policy, and US Supreme Court precedent."'
The coalition is made up of the Center for Biological Diversity, Columbia Riverkeeper, Conservation Law Foundation, Conservation Northwest, Friends of the Wild Swan, Oregon Wild, Sierra Club, Swan View Coalition, and WildEarth Guardians, and is represented by Earthjustice.
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