Here is the letter I just wrote to my Congressman. I felt the need, even though I know his vote on the health care bill tomorrow, I just felt it important to let him know my thoughts. I know that it will not change his vote. I just knew that I HAD to write this letter.
I know that you will be voting against the health care legislation currently set for a vote today. I am writing you to tell you that I am extremely embarrassed and offended that you are my representative. Being 26 I am lucky in terms of health care coverage, considering that I am highly unlikely to get sick. At the same time I have been in and out of health care coverage for the last six years, and I am currently facing a $1500 bill that I cannot pay due to hurting my ankle, while running, to be more healthy. Our system is broken, period, and seeing you, as my representative, doing nothing but spit on me, as a constituent in need, pains me. It hurts to see you so unwilling to work for the people that you represent, even though I have never once voted for you. You have no concern for your district and even less for the people that live within your district. I find your positions on social and economic issues, that affect me every day, deplorable.
I am writing you to plead for your support on the current health care bill. I know that it has a snowballs chance in hell, and I know that this one letter will do nothing to change your mind, but I am doing it out of civic duty. I implore you to support the bill, for me, for the people of Omaha, for the people of the second district, for the people of Nebraska, who are hurting and dying from a broken health care system. I hurt myself, as a healthy young male, to become more so, and I am being penalized due to that fact. It is obscene. It is sickening to think that because I didn't talk to the right people in the right order that I am being screwed by my insurance company. I have coverage, pretty decent coverage all things considered, and I am getting screwed on an order of operations error. This system is broken and it is killing us.
I hope beyond all hope. I pray for all that is good, that you will stand up and do the right thing, even though I know that you won't, and I will continue to curse you. You are a spineless coward, incapable of rational or empathic though. A political ploy in a "safe" district who acts out the bidding of your masters, never moving up the seniority chain, because you have no words to add to the debate. You let others fill your head and do what the chose you to do.
I need this bill to pass, to be fully embraced by this country, to help lead us forward. A risk pool of 325 million people with low overhead can do amazing work for the health, wellbeing, and happiness of the American people. I ask you to vote yes on this bill, even though I know that you won't, because it is the right thing to do. It is the right thing for me, by brother, my sister, my disabled father, my mother, our friends, our neighbors and our countrymen. It is the right thing, it is the right thing now, it was the right thing sixty years ago.
Thank you to whomever staffer who read this. Thank you for your time and your consideration, whatever it may be. If you have gotten to this point of my message, thank you, I thank your service and what you are doing. I just hope that this message will reach the right ears, the right people, and maybe just make a difference. We are counting on you Lee, even though you perpetually let us down.