I want to tell you about three calls I got this week.
First, I heard from a family living in their car -- no home, no money, no job, no health care.
Second, I heard from a lovely man -- a senior citizen -- who lost his home to foreclosure. he thought he had prepared for retirement, but sadly, he had not prepared for illness, and that broke him.
Third, I heard from a lung transplant recipient who lost her health insurance and cannot afford anti-rejection medications. I think I was able to help her -- I sure hope so.
Now, tell me ONE GOOD REASON we should not have health insurance reform in America. I challenge you. Don't we want to be better than this? Jennifer
Jennifer, It's not that we shouldn't, but that we're (The United States) just not ready for it. Even the Democratic party with it's large majorities in the House in the House and it's majority of 60 votes in the Senate (within the caucus) could not pull health reform together. This is especially true because the Republicans are standing as a solid block against the package of reforms the Democrats were able to come up with. Somehow, the amount of suffering hasn't spread far enough to impact those against reform in a personal way. I understand why our Congress is among the least respected groups in the United States. There is not enough personal courage. They see getting re-elected as their job more than serving critical public needs. RealClearPolitics which tracks polling data has an excellent chart tracking most major political polls. Congress got up to about 40% back about a year ago. That's high for them. Since then their approval has sunk to about 26%. Here's the link:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/congressional_job_approval-903.html#polls
I am really sad about this because I see this tragedy in health care occurring all around me.
I refuse to give up. I may be the last person standing on this one, all by myself, but I refuse to give up. And I KNOW that there are a TON of people like me who are still fighting. So dust yourself off, Frank, pick yourself up, and get on the phone with your members of Congress and let them know that they can count on losing your vote if they don't get this done. If enough of us do it, they have to listen.
ReplyDeleteDon't ever give up, Frank. They told me I'd never make it through law school because of my Crohn's and here I am. So never, ever give up. Jennifer
Jennifer, Thank you so much for writing back. I am gonna take your advice and call my Democratic Representative and my two Democratic Senators. I hope that many who read your blog call too and express outrage over even thinking of letting this chance pass us by.
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