Question:
Do you want to be an effective advocate for good health care reform that includes a public option??
If the answer is yes, please continue reading. If the answer is no, go away.
Nate has been writing quite about about the math on the Senate side. He has a post up today and he had one yesterday that included this:
It's the Senate side, though, where the public option was encountering most of its difficulties. Only 37** Senators, according to the whip count at Howard Dean's website, were firmly on board with the public option, whereas at least a few Democrats (Mary Landrieu, Joe Lieberman, Kent Conrad) had stipulated their opposition to it. (** EDIT: The information at the Dean website appears to be somewhat out of date. More recent counts show something like 43-45 Dems in favor.)
Nate refers to this piece to note that there are approximately 43 "Yes" votes on the public option as of the most recent whip count. He notes that Dean's website only counts 37 Senators who support the public option.
There have been at least a dozen diaries today accusing Obama of not supporting the public option enough, or writing letters to Obama demanding that he support the public option. There have been a number of "I give up" diaries. There have been a number of "SYFPH" diaries. There have been diaries that have begged people for action. All in all, it reads to me like most people here are literally freaking out at the thought of the public option not being in the final bill.
I get that. I really do. I'll be pissed if it isn't in the final bill as well. But all the freaking out in the world isn't going to get the public option into the final bill if two things don't happen...1. We have to have the votes. 2. We have to be effective.
We can't afford to waste time writing diaries with letters to Obama and debating whether or not Obama sufficiently supports the public option according to our specific level of desire. Let's face facts...Obama could demand a public option be part of the final bill on his desk tomorrow and that would still not be enough for people...then people would say, "but what about Single Payer!!!"
Let's be realistic for a moment. Let's listen to what Obama himself has said at all the town hall meetings - that the public option will help competition and that he supports it. He's doing his part. He can't do anymore - at least not publicly - to get the public option to his desk.
The hold up is in the Senate. We always knew it would be. And I don't want to hear about how Reid is weak and has 60 votes, etc. I know that. you don't have to convince me. Arguing about what Reid should or shouldn't do is pointless and a waste of time. He's not going to do what we want him to do because we complained about him on DKos. That isn't effective.
Here's what we need you to do today and every day from now until there's a vote on health care reform:
- Call your Senators every day. Call the local offices.
- Write and snail mail handwritten letters to your Senators as often as you can. If you can do this every day, great. Please do. If you can do it every other day, please do. If you can do it once a week, do that. Whatever you can do, do it. They don't have to be LONG letters they just have to be effective. State what you want. State why you want it. Share a personal story about why health care reform is so necessary for you or your family.
- If you have the time, do 1 and 2 for your Congressperson as well.
- Write a letter to the editor in support of the public option.
- Use the Organizing for America health care action center.
- Phonebank for health care reform. Organize locally.
- Go to any town hall meeting you can go to. Get as many of your friends/family to go with you as possible. Make it a fun event. Take a video camera. Make an effort to get on your local news and use those 15 seconds of fame to tell people who are watching your local news why the public option is so important. Ask the viewers to contact the Senator/Representative in support of the public option. Ask everyone you know to do the same.
- Call the Dem Leadership in the Senate and House and tell them to whip the votes for health care reform.
Whichever action you take above (and I hope you take all of them), be effective. Don't make threats if you can't back them up. The more numbers you have standing behind you, the more powerful you are. Remember that the same tactics that work on a Senator in a blue state may not work on a Senator in a red state.
Please do not call Senators if you are not from their home state. This is not a good use of your time, or theirs. Please do contact people you know in other states and ask them to call their own Senators with their own stories. Newsie2800 wrote a good diary about being effective a few weeks ago, Does being effective matter anymore?
One of Newsie's suggestions was:
Members of Congress will want to know how the piece of legislation is good for his/her district/state ("Is this legislation good for my district/state?"). That's why getting local people and their heart wrenching stories of being denied treatment by a health insurance company to members of Congress can have an effect.
Update:
An important comment from Newsie2800:
Absolutely
Elise -- I'd bold this section. One of the biggest misconceptions on DailyKos is that members of Congress give a shit about calls form outside the state. Elected officials care about their own constituents. The only exception is if they're looking to run for higher office. Even Howard Dean has told people to stick to contacting only their reps, but that has fallen on deaf ears. In the style of Bill Maher, here's a new rule: If someone is encouraging you to call all members on a committee, that is a person who doesn't know what he/she is talking about. This person's comments and diaries are not worth recommending.
If someone has already contacted their own members of Congress, then, they should branch out into influencing others in their community. They can call others to call their reps, write LTEs, canvass for OFA, etc.
The WH's position on the public option
by Newsie8200 on Mon Aug 17, 2009 at 02:02:29 PM PDT
The teaparty morons are appealing to the middle. They're getting sympathy from Independent voters. They're crying on TV about "the good old days". We need YOU crying on TV about the health care coverage you're missing, or telling the story of how you had to declare bankruptcy because of a pre-existing condition. The more local coverage you get, the more likely you are to swing a vote our direction.
Debating about the White House's position on a public option is a waste of time. You're not swinging any Senate votes by doing that and if we don't swing Senate votes to support the public option, it really will be dead regardless of the White House position.