THURSDAY NIGHT IS HEALTH CARE CHANGE NIGHT
Last week, Onomastic suggested we Kossacks create a "National Stand Down Day for Health Care" as a way to encourage serious transformation of our failed health care unsystem. This week, building on and simplifying her idea, I am offering a small action individual kossacks can engage in to make our voices heard. Best of all, it is an action Daschle himself suggested.
More below the jump.
Avahome was kind enough to send me a link to this Denver Post story entitled "Daschle: Obama Seeks Input on Health Care." Speaking to an audience in Colorado, Daschle informed the public that the transition team would like us to hold town halls in our communities to solicit input about our needs and our ideas.
He is asking that the town halls be held between December 18 and December 30. Anyone can sign up to become a moderator. Just go to this site.
I have decided to "moderate" a town hall in northern New Mexico. But since I am both practical and a little bit lazy, and also I am loaded with chutzpah, I am simply borrowing a previously scheduled town hall. A few days before I became aware of this link, I was called by the assistant to our state HSD secretary and asked to help generate turn-out for an unrelated town hall she was holding in my town to gather input on health care reform in our state. The meeting was to be co-hosted by our secretaries of Human Services and Health, and by the CEO of the Hospital Association.
What a stroke of luck! Instant turn out!
I immediately logged into change.gov and apprised them of the town hall I would be holding to get input on health care for the transition team. While I was at it, I provided Tom Daschle with a list of reasons he should attend my meeting. (He has promised to personally attend one.)
I then obtained permission from the HSD Secretary to put out forms soliciting input for the transition team. I intend to show up with camcorder and laptop to tape proceedings and take notes as well.
I doubt Secretary Hyde or Secretary Vigil will mind. They're used to my unorthodox procedures. (They might be a bit shocked if Daschle actually shows up...provoking yet another reprimand from my boss...but what the hey! You gotta have some fun.)
I encourage the rest of you to sign up to moderate town halls in your own towns and write up the results as part of our thursday night series. If not, then go to this site and tell Daschle to attend my town hall in Espanola, New Mexico on December 18 from 5:30 to 8:00. Tell him you'll be watching the blogs to see if he shows!
I'll write up the results if anything interesting comes out of it.