Over at Balloon Juice, Tim F. (one of bloggers who isn’t John Cole) is doing an enormous amount of work urging people to call Congress and tell them to just Pass.The.Damn.Bill.
I am convinced that the time to get a good start on desperately need health care reform is running out — and that furthermore, if this President fails this year, we will not get another chance until another Democratic President has the courage to try. And the resulting damage to the health and well-being of both this country’s citizens and its finances would be incalculable.
I consider myself a progressive (though some would no doubt say I’m not progressive enough) and I’ll be honest: I am not wild about the Senate bill. I really do want to see single-payer, and when progressives started talking about how, hey now, no one seems to have noticed that the left side of the country had already compromised to get even this far, I absolutely agreed.
But the truth is that we desperately need something, and in this case, something is immeasurably better than nothing.
So, I called my Representative, Danny K. Davis, last week, and also called to urge my Senators to do whatever they can to help their colleagues get this thing off the ground. In all three cases, I called and left a very brief message with the staffer who answered the phone.
About an hour ago, I decided to take it a step further, and, following Tim F.’s advice, called again, spoke at greater length, mentioned a particular memo (the Benan Memo) specifically, and asked questions about where Congressman Davis stands. Following is a re-cap of that conversation (and if you’re here from Balloon Juice, you probably already read this – sorry!):
I said my piece, mentioned the memo, and asked the staffer who answered the phone what the Congressman’s thoughts are on the question, and he transferred me to Davis’s Health Legislative Assistant, who was so gracious and helpful and talked with me for, I don’t know, 15-20 minutes.
Summary version of the conversation: Davis is, after all, a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and is pro-single payer himself, but he realizes that this is the best bill we have right now and is thinking of it in terms of a framework that can be filled in and built on later, much like Medicare.
I asked how folks like me (and was very clear that I think of myself as a progressive) can help, asking “phone calls like these?” And he said “Oh without question, make the phone calls.”
Personal, handwritten letters are also very powerful he said (“anytime a Congressional office gets 20 or so personal letters that are of the same opinion…”), but allowed as how the irradiation process in the Capitol slows the mails down considerably….
He said that emails are also paid attention to, but did mention that any staffer is likely to get about 100 a day on this issue—to me that is an indication that if you’re going to go with email, make sure your subject line is sharp and stands out, and that your text is brief and to-the-point. Like, 150 words, tops.
I then said “if I happen to know people who live in the districts of other members of the Progressive Caucus, should I encourage them to call?” and he said “oh, that would be excellent.” Here’s a link to a list of the members. (And we should probably all be asking to speak with our Representatives’ Health Legislative Assistants).
Please, please, please: Call your member of Congress — even if he or she is a Republican! I think it’s very important that the GOP understand that many of us have not drunk their nihilistic Kool Aid.
If you want tips and background and thoughts about the whole process, I can’t recommend Tim F.’s posts highly enough — this is a good one to start with.
If you just want to go ahead and make the call, here’s the number for the switchboard: 202-224-3121
