Better Health Care Depends on a Stronger Democracy

A Statement from Everyday Democracy, AmericaSpeaks, Demos, and Professor Archon
Fung of Harvard’s Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation
August 13, 2009

excerpts:
A key founding principle of our democracy is that the voice of the people should have an influence on public policy, at elections and in between them.
Beyond simply having a voice, people should have a chance to be informed, to hear each other, to work through tough decisions with each other and their elected officials, and to use democratic processes to figure out how to solve the problems that face us.
At a bare minimum, efforts to spread misinformation and to insult people who have different views and concerns harm our social fabric and weaken our democracy. We must find ways to move beyond stereotyping and preconceived notions of what “the others” believe and care about.
As critical as this is, we need to go further than encouraging more civil behavior. What we urgently need is a vibrant, inclusive democracy where people from different views and backgrounds can routinely meet, hear each other out in productive ways, and find ways to move forward.