On health insurance, 5 questions to ask your Senators and Representatives

[Mark Crispin Miller]

From Florindo Troncelliti:

For years, candidates for Congress and elected members of Congress told you they needed to be elected and re-elected so they could lower health insurance costs and provide universal coverage. Along the way, you kept working for and voting for those candidates and members of Congress

until, at long last, after the 2008 elections they formed wide majorities.

Now, as that new, wide majority drafts legislation designed to lower health care costs and provide universal coverage, you deserve to know if their campaign promises were real, or just empty rhetoric. Will your Senators support a meaningful public health insurance option--the minimum requirement

to lowering health care costs and providing insurance to all Americans--or not?

It is up to us to find out.

Email your Senators the following five, short, specific questions on where they stand on a public option. The link below takes you to a page that allows you to do just that:

http://www.healthcareforamericanow.org/WhipCount

Many members of Congress have given vague, open-ended answers when asked about their support for the public option. Many others have avoided these questions altogether. Some have even signed statements in support of a public option, and then flip-flopped under pressure from corporate interests.

We need to get to the bottom of this. No more vague answers. No more hiding behind process. No more talking a good game to progressive activists, but making deals with insurance companies behind closed doors.

We need clear, written responses from every Senator on where they stand on the public option. As a citizen and as an activist, you are entitled to answers. If they don’t respond, keep asking. If they respond, but continue to be vague, keep asking them.

http://www.healthcareforamericanow.org/WhipCount

You elected this Congress. They answer to you. They might be able to dodge the media, but as a constituent, they have to give you answers. Email your Senators the following five, short, specific questions on where they stand on a public option. Don’t stop until you receive a clear, written response from them:

http://www.healthcareforamericanow.org/WhipCount

Let’s get to the bottom of this. We need to know Congress is standing with us on the public health insurance option, so we can continue to stand with them when they are up for re-election.

In solidarity.