Last night I attended an Open Health Care Forum organized by my friends (and fellow Cardinals) Emily Langner and Deb Hall. The esteemed panelists–Katie Robbins from Healthcare-Now!, Donna Smith from the California Nurses Association (also featured in Sicko!), and U.S. Congressman John Conyers, author of HR 676–spoke for the majority of the program before it was opened up to questions.
U.S. Congressman John Conyers and Katie Robbins at the Open Health Care Forum at Wesleyan University, May 28, 2009
All of the panelists spoke about the need for a national single-payer health care system. I can’t recall ever having been to a health care event specifically geared toward the single-payer argument, though it is an end that I believe we should strive for myself. However, I also believe that there is more than one path between what we have now (which can hardly be called a health care system) and a single-payer health care system, and it was my impression that the panelists have chosen the direct path.
Wherever you stand, if you want to learn more about single-payer or HR 676, you can’t do much better than to hear about it straight from Congressman John Conyers, who authored the bill. You can see his remarks and those of others in the videos from the panel are below, which are arranged in chronological order. I ran out of tape after about 93 minutes, so the second part of the Q&A video was recorded to my digital still camera in two video clips, with a dramatic difference in quality.
Full Disclosure:I am the Online Organizer for the Connecticut Citizen Action Group. However, this being my personal blog, it is maintained on my own time using my own resources. The content of this blog post should be attributed to me, and not my employer. All that said, take my opinions on health care reform with as much salt as you like.
Connecticut Bob calls “Bullshit!” on an ad being run by the conservative organization Defense of Democracies. The ads are being run in congressional districts represented by Democrats, and and CT Bob cuts through the scare-mongering in his latest video:
Back in April I attended a conference on “The New Humanism” at Harvard and the big buzz at the time was that California Congressman Pete Stark was coming to speak at Harvard in five months. Congressman Stark is the highest ranking elected official in the U.S. to publicly identify himself as a nontheist, which requires more guts to do than it ought to — after all, there is still a clause in Article VI Section 3 of our U.S. Constitution which states that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”
Yet the religious beliefs of candidates and elected officials matter to voters. And for the most part, voters are least likely to vote for atheists or nontheists.
Which tells me that Congressman Stark may not be the highest-ranking nontheist in government, but rather the only one whose seat is safe enough that he can admit it.
One of my all-time favorite blogs is the Consumerist. It’s not political, but it’s very pro-little guy and it calls attention to unfairness in the marketplace with good humor (and advice). A Consumerist posting from yesterday will be of particular interest to readers of this site — Your Government: How to Write to Congress.
Though all of the tips in the article are useful, the reason I like it is because it emphasizes the impact of a personal letter. We’re all on the mailing lists for candidates, PACs, and interest groups that encourage us to “click here to send a letter to your representative about xyz issue” — but do those maximize our impact on the issue, or merely show how well-organized a particular interest group happens to be?
In many ways, the internet has increased participation in politics by making it so easy to contact our congressional representatives. It requires no more than 2 minutes to send an internet form letter to your Senator asking them to consider your position on an issue, and your letter will be counted in aggregate with the deluge of similar if not identical electronic missives from your fellow district residents. Consider that if you took 10 minutes to draft a personalized letter (built from the ground up) it would stand out considerably.
We in the blogosphere are the people who are often the most politically engaged in our social circles (unless one only associates with other bloggers), so imagine the impact we might have if instead of forwarding the latest e-mails asking for us to have our friends send a form letter to their representatives, we occasionally asked our friends to take 10 minutes to write a personalized letter on an issue that we know will be important to them?
Why Personal Letters Beat Form Letters
Don’t get suckered in by the quick and easy “Write to Congress!” form letters littering the internet. Form letters are not an expression of values; they are a show of organizational strength. If the NRA convinces five million people to send letters opposing gun control, it shows that the NRA can muster five million people to action, not that five million people necessarily care about gun laws. Congressional offices know this and generally disregard form letters.
So what happens when you send a letter?
Every office has its own procedures for tabulating constituent correspondence, but most will produce a report at the end of week breaking down how many letters were received by issue area, separating out form letters from letters sent by individual constituents.
Members treat each type of letter differently, but most look for individual letters as a barometer of their district’s concerns. These are the letters that have the most influence, the ones we will show you how to write.
What Should Your Letter Say?
We adhere to the three paragraph rule: introduce yourself, introduce your issue, request action. Congressional offices have staffers whose days are spent solely on the mail, so make their lives easier by keeping letter succinct and to the point.
The post is full of great advice for writing your letter, and it’s a quick read. Check it out.
The 30-second radio spot, which airs on Danbury and Waterbury stations, characterizes Murphy as a hypocrite. Quoting the congressman on the need to get lobbyist money and special-interest money out of elections, an announcer says when Murphy got to Washington he “changed his tune …, taking over $190,000 from special-interest committees and lobbyists” and that Murphy’s “total haul from special-interest and lobbyist money is over $450,000.” The radio ad does not cite a source for these figures. The announcer directs listeners to a Web site, realdemocratstory.com, that spotlights 28 freshman Democrats and provides links to each one.
And if you want a citation of those figures, you’re not likely to find one at “realdemocratstory.com,” which redirects to the DCCC website. The real URL, well, I think I’ve given you all the information you need to find it, if you must.
The NRCC is probably targeting Chris Murphy because of things like this other Scott Whipple report in the New Britain Herald from August 1, “Murphy calls for ethics reform”
Currently, members of Congress can bring ethics complaints to the Ethics Committee, composed of sitting members who decide if the complaint warrants an investigation. If an investigation is considered necessary, the committee does the digging and determines whether punishment is needed.
Murphy insists freshman Democrats want to address structural flaws in the process.
Earlier this year, the House leadership appointed a bipartisan Special Task Force on Ethics Enforcement to determine how to handle ethics claims. Murphy and his newly elected colleagues say they are concerned because this task force has not released its recommendations on whether to appoint an outside investigator for claims against members of Congress.
This report was targeted for release in late May. If Congress fails to return in September with an ethics reform proposal for consideration, Murphy said he intends to begin working with other newly elected Democrats on legislation to address the problem.
“Reform isn’t easy,” Murphy said. “Nothing worthwhile ever is.”
Case in point: It wasn’t easy to unseat Nancy Johnson, but boy was it worthwhile.
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