We have one month and a couple of days in August to line up the votes for authentic healthcare reform.
Congressional switchboards are ready for your calls starting at 9AM. You must make the political class feel the earth move beneath their feet until the day they leave Washington, D.C. on August 3rd.
Then, when they are back in their districts, through Labor Day, they must understand they will get no mercy from voters if they vote against us on healthcare.
Here's the Congressional calendar, memorize it, please!
I'm bone weary. I'm weary because we are still fighting for a simple and fundamental right. Why has every other industrialized nation managed to incorporate--guaranteed and affordable healthcare for everyone--such a profoundly human concept into the national psyche, yet we Americans, are still debating?
Before I go any further, thanks to Jerome a Paris for the Countdown concept.
[Update 1] Please read Jane Hamsher's post on The Campaign Silo. She explains why it's so critical that we get pledges from as many Congresspeople as humanly possible.
This is the take home message from Jane.
This is a picture of what will happen on the Public Option. Trial balloons are already being sent up about a sell-out, and the "co-op" plan is now the "liberal option" among the Villagers. Progressives (like Adam Green) who represent the feelings of 76% of the country are "extremists" who want to "kill health care reform."
We're headed for a bad compromise unless members of Congress know that there is safety in numbers, that their constituents are aware of what's going on and won't let their arms get twisted into betraying their districts. This is why we need to get them on the record. Now. They need to Take the Pledge to vote against any bill that doesn't have any health care bill if it doesn't include a public plan that is 1) available nationwide, 2) from day one, and 3) answerable to Congress and the voters.
Jay Inslee, who "guarded the doors" as an enforcer, is in a solid progressive district and could probably use some calls asking him to Take the Pledge. His office numbers are 202-225-6311 (DC), 206-361-0233 or 360-598-2342 in Seattle. His Chief of Staff is Brian Bonlender, who can be reached at 202-225-6311, and his Press Secretary is Christine Hanson, who is at 202-225-6311. His staff is also on Twitter.
Inslee and others need to know that we don't want the Doggett story replayed on health care.
[Update 2] DrSteveB says you must continue calling Senator Kay Hagan.
[Update 3] I'm being told that we need to get some calls in to Jerry Nadler. Seems he's reluctant to take the Whip Count Pledge. Jerry represents my district and we are so Blue that they haven't invented a shade for us. So Jerry, what gives?
Please give Mr. Nadler a call. Remind him he works for us, and demand he sign the Whip Count pledge.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler
2334 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Tel. 202-225-5635
Manhattan
Rep. Jerrold Nadler 201 Varick Street, Suite 669
New York, NY 10014
Tel. 212-367-7350
Regarding casework, such as a personal issue dealing with a federal agency, or other issues or concerns in my district, you can call or write to my Manhattan or Brooklyn offices.
Brooklyn
Rep. Jerrold Nadler
445 Neptune Ave.
Brooklyn, NY 11224
Tel. 718-373-3198
These next thirty days are critical. We elected a president, but the fight continues. We are at zero hour, and the mother of all endgames has begun. The forces desperately clinging to the broken and depraved status quo, will not go gently into that dark night. Our message to them, neither will we.
For many years now, I've attempted to put a human face on our national catastrophe.I should not need to do this for the rest of my life. The work everyone must do for through Labor Day, will change the course of history for your children and your grandchildren. We cannot and will not let them down. Failure is not an option.
I'll update this diary when necessary, as politicians who require voter arm twisting are brought to my attention. So if you can, check back from time to time.
Now it's come down to the American people.
Yesterday, I called the office of Jerrold Nadler who happens to be my representative, to ask that he commit to voting against any healthcare bill which does not include a strong and well-funded public option available to all Americans on Day One. You can read his disappointing response in this diary I wrote for Campaign Silo.
Olympia Snowe and Charles Schumer need to hear from you.
Snowe seeks bipartisan health bill
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Sen. Olympia Snowe, a key figure in shaping federal health care legislation, said Monday that a government-run plan that would take effect if the private insurance market fails to deliver affordable coverage could bridge the partisan divide that threatens to derail President Barack Obama's efforts to reform the system.
Snowe, R-Maine, said she's working with Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to establish that kind of a framework in the bill expected to emerge next month from the Senate Finance Committee.
In an Associated Press interview in Portland, Snowe said it would be unfair to include a government-run health insurance option that would take effect immediately.
http://www.google.com/...
Calling residents of Maine to contact their senator.
Be kind to Olympia and let her know, history will treat her well if she summons the courage to embrace an unfettered public option available to all Americans on day one.
Olympia Snowe
Mailing Address:
154 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Phone: (202) 224-5344
Toll Free: (800) 432-1599
Fax: (202) 224-1946
Residents of New York, please call Mr. Schumer.
Be stern and tell Schumer, no more compromising with our healthcare.
Please use this Whip Count Tool, like you life depends on it, because it does.
Please read slinkerwinker's diaries every day for complete and comprehensive lists with all contact numbers.
Every day, each one of you must target a senator, congressperson or the White House and demand that the mandate of November, 2008 be honored.
This is a battle about whether whether our better angels will prevail. Who wins? The American people or fetid and toxic health insurers. I don't need to remind you again, that this parasitic industry has brought nothing but misery and ruin to countless millions of families and cannot be allowed to remain at the center of our healthcare system.
And as we go about our work, allow your rage to build by thinking about men like Joe Lieberman. And when you call Mr. Lieberman, ask him do Mark Moody and Glenda Krull deserve the same healthcare that he enjoys?
Even those with health insurance are going broke
When Mark Moody and Glenda Krull could no longer afford both health insurance and mortgage payments, the Edmonds couple knew which had to go.
They sold their house.
Moody, 60, had a liver transplant four years ago and may need another. He alone pays $1,345 a month for the most generous policy he can buy from Premera Blue Cross.
And he's desperate to hang on to it — even though the costly premiums drove his wife to downgrade her own coverage, decimated their retirement savings and, just this month, forced them out of their well-appointed home into a newly purchased house half its size.
For Americans with serious illnesses, even good insurance is no guarantee they won't go broke and they will get all the medical care they need.
In 2007, nearly two-thirds of all personal bankruptcies filed across the country were linked to illnesses, loss of income or high medical bills, according to a survey published in June by researchers at Harvard University and Ohio University. Of those cases, 78 percent of the debtors had health insurance when they first got sick.
What's more, even insured people without serious health problems like Moody are struggling to afford increasingly higher deductibles and co-pays that are eroding the value of employer-provided insurance — even as employers are also paying more to provide that coverage.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/...
Should Mark Moody and Glenda Krull face financial ruin despite being insured with private, for-profit junk insurance? Please, as much as possible, when you are making your calls, put a human face on our national catastrophe. Then explain to those we elect to do our business, that they will face sure and swift punishment at the polls in 2010, if they dare to vote against the American people.
The politcians care only about money and votes--not your welfare or mine.
And remind all the others who seem to have forgotten that they are elected to do our business, that we live in a Democracy. On November 4th, 2008, the American people went to the polls and voted for new leadership, and to take our country back from those who seek to profit from the misfortune of others.
One of the most critical steps in reclaiming our country, is to give the American people a functioning healthcare system. To do anything less than this, would be to betray future generations.
Please use this Whip Count Tool, like you life depends on it, because it does.