I have a very intelligent friend who, like me, writes letters to the newspapers expressing her views; but she goes further in that she really educates the reader. We're both retired teachers; however, I taught little kids whereas she taught high school seniors English composition. She is so articulate and thinks so logically and writes so persuasively, or perhaps the latter is because I agree with her politics. Anyway, I wanted to share the letter she sent me today which I found to be a brilliant argument for why we need healthcare reform. I bet it will be published on the opinion page this Sunday:

When I read of stratagems to deter the health care public option, I am reminded of Thomas Paine’s opprobrium for a Tory father, fearing war’s ravages to his business, who wanted “peace in his time.”  “A more generous parent,” Paine said, “would have said, ‘If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.’”

 Who can doubt the fiery discourse preceding passage of the 1913 amendment instituting the federal income tax?  Or the Social Security Act of 1935?  I remember the fury surrounding the 60s Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, for which the Democrats lost the South.  Further, I remember my mom’s fear when Medicare was launched, and I know how she came to depend upon it.  Remarkable was our leaders’ courage to do the right things in those hard times, making us the beneficiaries of their far-sightedness. 

Nor is the argument valid that the debate is proceeding too fast. Teddy Roosevelt called for national health insurance in 1912 as did Harry Truman 30 years later. President Nixon was close to signing such a measure in 1974. Bill Clinton, too, attempted such.  If not now, when?

 According to Senator Bernie Sanders, Independent, VT, 18,000 Americans, without timely access to a doctor, die yearly; and 1 million families this year will face bankruptcy because of medical costs.

 Will we be among the courageous, leaving our children with affordable, undeniable, accessible health care, or will we be among the after-me-the-deluge folks, only wanting “peace” in their day?

Yesterday I talked to a staff member of Senator Bayh's office and told him how I feel about the need for him to support the clean energy bill and a public option for health care....and told him how  upset I am with the "Blue Dog Democrats'" position on health care reform. The staffer was really very polite and said he'd pass along the information.

Everyone should be willing to phone or email their elected officials and express their opinions.

It's the apathy of a great number of our citizens along with the corporate greed of many of the most powerful industries that have given us "the best government money can buy" and allowed this "profit first--people last" ideology to thrive.....at least until everyone is brought down by it.

Don't be lazy or stop speaking out. Be an active participant in the months and years after you leave the voting booth.....during that time between elections! Call your senators and representatives and let them know how you feel and what you think.  It's good therapy.

Republicans are determined to stop health care reform especially any public option and plan to spend millions of dollars during their summer recess to do it. They keep citing data from the "Lewin Group" which they claim is "nonpartisan" in their number crunching statements and talking points.  

Republican talking points will be heard verbatim and ad nauseum in the coming weeks from elected GOPers, conservative pundits and million dollar ads paid for by insurance companies. In the meantime people die and some go  bankrupt all for lack of insurance or having their insurer deny coverage for needed procedures. What a disgrace! In our country, health care isn't a right for all citizens. Instead, health care is BIG business and profit is always more important than people. Our Blue Dog Democrat IN senator Evan Bayh has received $1,565,088 from for-profit health and insurance interests, and Bayh's wife has made $2,140,253 serving on various health care industry boards from 2006 to 2008.  Could that possibly influence how he'll vote? As Sarah Palin would say, "You betcha!"

I have a sinking feeling that because of their desire for bi-partisan compromise and trying to please everyone, the Obama Administration will end up giving us a watered down program of "health insurance reform" instead of any real  health care reform that would guarantee coverage for everyone!

GOP Memo Talking Points:

•President Obama and Democrats are conducting a grand experiment with our economy, our country, and now our health care.

•President Obama's massive spending experiments have created more debt than at any other time in our nation's history.

•The President experimented with a $780 billion dollar budget-busting stimulus plan and unemployment is still rising. The President experimented with banks and auto companies, and now we're on the hook for tens of billions of dollars with no exit plan.

•Now the President is proposing more debt and more risk through a trillion dollar experiment with our health care.

•Democrats are proposing a government controlled health insurance system, which will control care, treatments, medicines and even what doctors a patient may see.

•This health care experiment will have consequences for generations, but President Obama and Democrats want to ram this legislation through Congress in two months.

•President Obama's health care experiment is too much, too fast, too soon. Our country cannot afford to fix health care through a rushed experiment.

•Americans want health care reform that addresses, not increases, cost or debt.

•Government takeover is the wrong way to go -- health care decisions should remain between the doctor and the patient.

Women make up at least 50% of the population in the U.S. but are still fighting to be treated as equals. We hear more about race issues than about the gender gap, but the facts speak for themselves. If the roles were reversed, would our male citizens just sit back and do nothing about it?  I would stack up my three daughters' intelligence and work ethics against any men's. Ponder these from the AAUW booklet:

On average, women earned only 77 cents for every dollar earned by men in 2006.

Women 65 and older (20 percent) are nearly twice as likely as men in this age group (12 percent) to be poor or near poor; median household income for women is a little more than half that of men in this age group.

Although more women than men now attain baccalaureate and advanced degrees, women make up only 38 percent of faculty at two- and four-year institutions. Of that number, 36 percent of female faculty members have tenure.

Women hold 16.4 percent of the seats in the U.S. Congress, including 16 (16 percent) of the 100 seats in the Senate and 72 (16.6 percent) of the 435 seats in the House of Representatives.

Only eight U.S. state governors (16 percent) are women.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words....especially those of my two favorite political cartoonists: Sargent and Oliphant. I love their work and these two timely statements made with their pens and ink. I worry about what will become of this type of political commentary as our nation's newspapers continue to shrink and die.

 Sargent's "Wise Latina"  

Oliphant on Health Care

If I hear another GOP senator ask Sonia Sotomayor about her "wise Latina woman" remark, I'm gonna lose it! How many times will she have to answer the same question? Do Jeff Sessions, Lindsay Graham, Cornyn and Coburn think she'll  eventually give a different answer if they keep asking it over and over ad nauseum? Don't they have some really intelligent questions?  Evidently not and also seem unaware how they look to us news "junkie" viewers who managed to stay awake. One thing for sure, watching these confirmation hearings works as well as an Ambien sleeping pill! I fell asleep and woke up a half hour later to hear another Republican senator making the same comments and  asking the same darn question that had put me to sleep.

Trying to paint this Supreme Court nominee as a racist makes the GOP senators look soooooo lame and racists themselves. They either are very disorganized and stupid or are trying to make her angry so she'll blow up? I think Sonia Sotomayor is a "wise Latina woman" and a lot smarter than these GOP doofuses, and they just can't stand it.

I feel so strongly about this health care issue that I’m sharing some excerpts from Sunday's Truthout Perspective article.  It contains interesting information about how things work in Washington, D.C. and should outrage all of us. If we can’t convince these government officials that they work for us, we need to tell them to start looking for other jobs…..and make sure it isn’t as lobbyists. The bold italics are mine.

SOME CHOICE WORDS FOR “THE SELECT FEW” - July 12, 2009 by Bill Moyers and Michael Winship Truthout Perspective

Katharine Weymouth, the publisher of The Washington Post - one of the most powerful people in DC - invited top officials from the White House, the Cabinet and Congress to her home for an intimate, off-the-record dinner to discuss health care reform with some of her reporters and editors covering the story.

 But CEOs and lobbyists from the health care industry were invited, too, provided they forked over $25,000 a head - or up to a quarter of a million if they want to sponsor a whole series of these cozy get-togethers. And what is the inducement offered? Nothing less, the invitation read, than "an exclusive opportunity to participate in the health-care reform debate among the select few who will get it done."

…………the "stakeholders" in health care reform do not include the rabble - the folks across the country who actually need quality health care but can't afford it. If any of them showed up at the kitchen door on the night of this little soiree, the bouncer would drop kick them beyond the Beltway.

………. The Washington Post dinner was canceled after a copy of the invite was leaked to the web site Politico.com, by a health care lobbyist, of all people. The paper said it was a misunderstanding - the document was a draft that had been mailed out prematurely by its marketing department. There's noblesse oblige for you - blame it on the hired help.

According to one poll after another, a majority of Americans not only want a public option in health care, they also think that growing inequality is bad for the country, that corporations have too much power over policy, that money in politics is the root of all evil, that working families and poor communities need and deserve public support if the market system fails to generate shared prosperity.

But, when the insiders in Washington have finished tearing worthy intentions apart and devouring flesh from bone, none of these reforms happen. "Oh," they say, "it's all about compromise. All in all, the nature of the give-and-take-negotiating of a representative democracy."

………..It's not about compromise. It's not about what the public wants. It's about money - the golden ticket to "the select few" who actually get it done.

[For the entire article go to:  http://www.truthout.org/071209A]

Friday evening I got quite an education on how the private health care insurance companies operate to derail any real changes by watching Bill Moyer's Journal .... truly a fantastic program on PBS. I would urge everyone with any questions about or interest in this issue to watch Moyers' progam online (link below). 

http://www.pbs.org/video/program/1113570149 

The program is titled "Health and Money in Washington." The first part focused on and was called "Health Care Reform on the Table" and the second part is an interview with Wendell Potter, an insider and former CEO of Cigna, who gave a shocking picture of how the "Profits Over People" and Wall Street mentality and philosophy have guided the health insurance industry's policies. It is well worth the time it takes to view it.

This Sunday afternoon I hosted a small group of activists who are devoting time and energy to get some grass roots support for health care reform which would include the "public option" as part of it. 

The little group who met here included a public health RN, a young woman who'd just finished her MA degree and who will start work soon on her doctorate in pediatric medicine, and a long time political activist native American and architect. We made phone calls to drum up support for the needed change and did our little bit to counteract the negative fear mongering going on now by the healthcare reform opponents who are spending one and a half million dollars EVERY DAY on pr and tv ads to scare people away from the "public option."  This is really a life and death issue that affects all of us.

This past weekend marked the first anniversary of my widowhood. That is a real word and state of being! The sadness with lumps in the throat and tears come much less often now. My oldest daughter, Val (“murisopsis" to her Xanga friends) came down to be with me. She kept me occupied and too busy to dwell on sad memories, but we did talk a lot and shop a lot too. My daughter said this year was not only a celebration of our nation’s birthday but really a celebration of Independence Day for Daddy too….freedom from the pain and chains of this earthly life. The last day his life was July 5^th. I’d spent the night before at his bedtime, holding his hand and talking to him about our half century plus of life together. Those final hours of our life together are a permanent part of my heart and memory now.

On my kitchen table is my mother’s hundred year old antique glass pitcher filled with blue and pink hydrangia from the new bush in the shade garden and Shasta daisies from the church altar bouquet in memory of my husband. A bouquet of red carnations and fern are next to his ashes….and like the Betty White character “Rose” on the Golden Girls, I find myself talking still to my departed husband every day. I suppose this will gradually cease as time passes.