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Put Holdout Senators on Your Speed Dial
Dan sends out an email to the GMC community saying, “Strategically NOW is the time when we can really have an impact by contacting [those in Congress]. Encourage others to do likewise!”Dan is a Philadelphia small-business owner who sees his company’s health insurance premiums rising by 18% next year. He told me he’s put the Senators’ phone numbers on speed dial.Michael Moore said progressives should get into the habit of making at least 4 phone calls a day—1 to the President, 1 to...
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Stroke Survivor Goes to Washington
My friend Shelly Newman, a rabbinic student and retired teacher, went to Washington in September as part of the American Heart Association delegation and talked to various Senators about healthcare reform.She met with Senator Tom Harkin, Chair of the HELP Committee, and the two Senators from her home state Michigan, and sat through some of the Senate Finance Committee’s discussions.Here is Shelly's statement:"Seven years ago, following basal cell carcinoma on my face, I returned to the...
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Self-Employed Mother Writes to the President
A self-employed couple with a daughter pays $650/month for health insurance with $5000 deductible. The mother writes to the President urging him to support public option.********************************October 16, 2009Dear President Obama:I voted for you, and I thank you for your work on behalf of low- and middle-income Americans, and in particular your support of those of us in urban centers. I work with people who are currently and formerly homeless, and most of these individuals are incr...
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Small Business Owner Writes to the President
Doug Thut-Witmer shares with us the letter he wrote to the President in September 2009:Dear President Obama,I'm writing today to express my support for you, but to also challenge you to provide more aggressive leadership in the area of health care reform. I voted for you because I believed you would lead us in radically taking the American health care system in a new direction.I am a self-employed artist, small business owner, and father of 3 small children in Philadelphia. I must count mys...
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Lamar's Letter to the Editor
Lamar Freed wrote a Letter to the Editor supporting single-payer healthcare. It was published in the Philadelphia Inquirer on Sunday, Oct 4, 2009:We Already Pay for Universal CareNo matter how you parse the insurance wars, the bottom line is that the people of the country pay for everyone's health care.They do it by paying more for products and services to cover the cost to companies for insuring their employees. They do it through higher healthcare costs that are needed to cover ...
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Why Katie Thinks "Specter Visit" a Success
It’s about taking ownership of the political process, as Katie Ernst eloquently attests to in the essay below.Katie,
a young, law-school graduate who herself has had some harrowing
experiences with health insurance, was among the group from GMC who
visited the Philadelphia office of Senator Arlen Specter last Thursday.Just
to add my two cents: I call our visit a success because, as we spent
some time together that morning, I got a glimpse of the true HOPE that
was so talked about duri...
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Handwritten Letters and Questions
I wrote my second set of hand written letters to President Obama and
Senators Specter and Casey. I thanked them for their support of
healthcare reform but indicated that I did not feel the current bills
were addressing the fundamental issue of our cost of healthcare.I
appreciate that I do have healthcare insurance. However, my company
just told us that the cost for our Blue Cross, Blue Shield have
risen 30.9% since 2005. For 2010 the company is increasing the
percentage ...
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Janet's Letter to Senator Arlen Specter
On Thursday, Nov 5, a number of us visited the Philadelphia office of Senator Arlen Specter to talk about healthcare reform. Janet couldn't make it. She sent a letter (see below) with us to be hand-delivered to Specter's aide.While at home, Janet called Representative Chaka Fattah's office and thanked him for his upcoming vote supporting the healthcare bill. She also sent emails to her friends and family around the country urging them to contact their representatives."Dear Senator Spec...
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Keep those letters coming!
Yesterday I wrote (by hand, of course) to Obama, Specter, and Fattah, urging them not to back down. I said that we need healthcare for all, now, not by means of a trigger in the event of some future possibility, and that it will only be meaningful if everyone is part of the system. I urged them to stand up to the insurance industry. To Fattah, I wrote of my annoyance with the wastefulness of the current system, which makes me get a prescription for a routine screening mammogram...
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Sit-in & Get Arrested: Be Brave at Any Age!
On Friday, Wendy Schlotterbeck sent us this email:"I have been following the emails from GMC about healthcare reform with great interest.I thought some of you might be interested to know that my son, Markus, a student at Swarthmore, is very active in an activist group pressing for healthcare reform. Today at noon, in Philadelphia, 13 students staged a peace action protest in front of Independence Blue Cross. They were trying to bring attention to the facts of Independence Blue Cross spending hea...
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