On Friday, January 28, 2011, President Obama cautioned Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak that, “suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away.”

One year earlier, on January 25, 2010, our President said in his State of the Union address “If you have a better idea (for health care reform) let me know, let me know, let me know.”

So on January 29, 2010, Dr. Margaret Flowers and I went to the Harbor Hotel in Baltimore, where the President was meeting with the GOP leadership, in an attempt to deliver a letter to the President, outlining how a National Health Program IS a better idea.

We got arrested. Again.

Suppressing true health care reform isn’t going to make it go away. It’s an idea that is thriving, thanks to independent media like Democracy Now!, Huffington Post, Firedog Lake, Counterpunch, Common Dreams and OpEd News. And thanks to social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. And thanks to the grassroots work of Single Payer healthcare reform activists around the country.

We have only to look at what is happening in

Vermont where they have a governor, Peter Shumlin, who campaigned on a state Single Payer platform, a Congressional delegation including Sen. Bernie Sanders, Rep. Peter Welch and Sen. Patrick Leahy, who support state Single Payer legislation, and a state legislature that is listening to the ideas of the people of Vermont, who are saying loudly and clearly, “we want comprehensive, publicly funded, single payer healthcare for all Vermonters.”

Mr. President, actions speak louder than words.

Dr. Paris is a psychiatrist and a member of the Maryland Chapter of PNHP, Physicians for a National Health Program  She was one of the “Baucus 8″ arrested with Dr. Margaret Flowers, Attorney Kevin Zeese and others for protesting the absence of representation for single payer universal health care on the Baucus Senate Panel hearings.