Having spent the better part of the summer forgoing work on my dissertation as well as the opportunity for paid employment in order to organize for health care reform, I was instantly incredulous when I read this article title on the Huffington Post "Lawmakers: Sorry, We Won't Make Obama's Health Care Deadline." Not meeting a deadline is something most employees and students understand. Sometimes things come up, problems are more complicated than expected, computers inexplicably eat papers, your alarm clock doesn't ring to wake you up for the final or you fail muster the brain power to complete the task at hand. So you ask for an extension. But if thousands of citizens around the country are giving up their summers to fight for health care reform, I think their representatives should have to give up their break as well. As soon as they finish their work, I am happy to send them off to Italy, but not before.
Benevolent bosses and teachers will grant extensions, provided a particular and important caveat. You have to keep working. Right away. You don't get to go home and finish the exam later. You finish the project within the next 48 hours so that its ready to present to the Board. You pull an all-nighter and get the paper written. According to the HuffPo, lawmakers seem to be of the mind that they can fail to deliver health care with a meaningful, nationwide and immediately available public option and still go to the beach. I know it is officially known as a district working period, but I have the intertubes and a telephone, so I don't mind if I have to telecommute to D.C. to get my part of the work done. Don't worry, I'll still be sure to call my representatives and demand a public option.
I am here to say that they can't go on a vacation from working on health care reform until I can. And I am still hard at work. I am their boss (you are too), and while I am willing to let them keep working on it, they certainly haven't earned a chance to go outside for recess. As the HuffPo states:
"Democrats and Republicans alike said the administration's sweeping health care proposals are moving forward on Capitol Hill but cautioned against rushing into a spending plan that could costs trillions of dollars over the next decade."
Our health care system, exactly as it is this moment, is already a spending plan that will cost trillions of dollars over the next decade. Worse yet, it is a spending plan that causes half of all personal bankruptcies in this country. It is a spending plan that leaves 46 million Americans without the regular, preventative health care that would save us all millions of dollars in emergency room costs because those 46 million Americans cannot afford insurance. Yet somehow, according to Senator Kent Conrad, (?-N.D.),"there really is plenty of time." Perhaps he feels that way because he and his family already have the best health insurance program in this country. I do not think that there is plenty of time. Nor do the 155 American citizens who have signed this letter to the Senate Finance Committee. In the stories that accompany the signatures on this letter, there could be no clearer illustration that there is NOT plenty of time. There is a fierce urgency for folks who are being bankrupted, treating their children's illnesses at home, forgoing routine women's health screenings, and watching their premiums soar and have no choice but to pay because their is not competition in the health insurance marketplace where they live. We cannot wait.
Health care reform is an assignment that that Congress must complete now, with the fierce urgency that their constituents demonstrated in the 2008 election, and that their President has called on them to show by setting aggressive deadlines. And as a result, I, their boss, will call them Monday and tell them that I expect them to keep working. Congressional recess cannot come at the expense of my health, or yours. Congressional vacations will make us all sick. President Obama's deadline is my deadline too, and I expect my representatives to abide by it.
If you agree, call your representative now and tell them you expect them to keep working until their first health care assignment, a floor vote for bills in the House and Senate, is complete. You can reach them at (202)224-3121, the Capitol Hill Switchboard. Just ask to be connected to your representative. After you call them, call the White House and tell the operator that you want the President to call a special session if Congress fails to deliver health care reform floor votes before the August recess. The number for the White House is 202-456-1414.
Update: Politico is now also suggesting that we will need call for a summer school.