Private and Public Tragedy

Organizing for America- the organizing branch of the Obama campiagn that stuck around afterwards, has a great example of using technology to rally people.

I wrote the following to Chris Carney and as I got into it I wanted to give it a broader audience.


Dear Rep. Carney,

I am here for Betsy and Lisa [Names changed]-

We must pass health insurance reform now. Too many people and businesses face warped incentives or grim and miserable health due to the burdens of our perverse and broken system.

Betsyworks full tie in a private child care facility. She is a single mom. She often baby sits infants for many families and is always willing to help people with sick children or other events. Her selflessness allows others to pursue their careers as professors, doctors, and business leaders. Her employer, a day care center subsidized by a local employer, does not provide coverage. She had such severe back problems she could not sleep. Friends pooled $300 to help her see a chiropractor. She limited coverage now, but is still an injury away from financial crisis.

Lisa has leukemia. She works cleaning people’s homes. She cleans and cooks for her husband every day, even when he has been furloughed or been between jobs. She stays married to a disinterested, neglectful and nearly abusive husband because she could never afford individual coverage, or even get it with her leukemia. Where is her freedom to live her life? The combination of patriarchy and our health care system is deeply unfair and sexist. I think only the strength of her personality and her adult son keeps her husband from raising his hand against her.

Millions are uninsured. In 2009, one study found 45,000 Americans died due to lack of coverage. [1] They used a rigorous method used by researchers in 1993 who found around half that number then. Among those 45,000 are more than 2,000 uninsured veterans.[2] On 9/11, 3,000 of our citizens were innocent victims and became iconic heroes. We endure 15 9/11s every year through 45,000 private tragedies of martyrs to a broken healthcare system midwife by a corrupt political system. We have marshaled billions of dollars and 100,000s of soldiers to avenge the fallen of 9/11. Meanwhile, we engage in trivial “death panel” and “reconciliation” food fights at home while our fellow citizens are chewed up and spit out as corpses by the broken health care system. Why should the public tragedy of 9/11 count for so much more all these years than the sum of 45,000 private tragedies year in and year out?

Where is the justice in that? How is that fair?


[1] Heavey, Susan. Sept 2009. “Study Links 45,000 Deaths to Lack of Health Insurance.” Reuters. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE58G6W520090917

[2] Physicians for A National Health Program. Nov 10, 2009. “Over 2,200 veterans died in 2008 due to lack of health insurance.” http://www.pnhp.org/news/2009/november/over_2200_veterans_.php

Support for Public option in "swing" blue dog districts

So, our Rep, Chris Carney is a member of blue dog coalition (I just checked).

I know that others have done the critical work of organizing and delivering the signatures to Rep Carney (thanks y'all).

Despite the baying on the megaphones, the radial right is not relevant to the debate on health care reform. Sam Tannenhaus discussed this idea with Bill Moyers last week. He said:

Either the Republicans or Democrats have ruled since the Civil War for periods of some 30-36 years. And in those periods, all the great debates have occurred within a single party. So, if you go back to the 1980s, which some would say was the peak of the modern conservative period, the fight's about how to end the Cold War, how to unleash market forces-- were really Republican issues.

Today, when we look at the great questions -- how to stimulate the economy, how to provide and expand and improve a sustainable health care system, the fight is taking place among Democrats.

The chance of a public option, which I think is more about whether a politician can imagine a more radical restructuring of our society versus a kind of apologist, window-dressing, don't-shake-the-table approach, will be fought out WITHIN the democratic party.

So, the health insurance industry is against a public option. Who is for it? The public in 91 swing districts.

The poll, by respected Dem pollster John Anzalone, finds that 54% of these swing district voters support the public option, and makes the case that these voters emphatically don’t want a “trigger,” the compromise of choice in some quarters:

Geeky stats note- that is 54% with a 2.5% margin of error at 95% confidence interval. In plain English- it is 95% likely that the real support is between 51.5 and 56.5%.

The polling memo does not indicate if they can break it out by distircit, but given they covered 91, I doubt it. So, we don't know or sure if our swing district is like the rest of these.

Some polling of specific swing districts found support for the public option (from a plurality to clear majorities) AND LESS for Obama by name. The message: campaign on the details in these types of districts.

Meanwhile, the DCCC raises money for vulnerable "frontline" dems, like the Blue Dogs who almost always get an allergic reaction to progressive ideas, with appeals to health care reform from Bill Clinton:

It’s up to us to prevent the Republican Party and their special interest backers from doing whatever they can to prevent this historic opportunity to make quality health care affordable and accessible to all.

On the bright side, the progressive hosue caucus is holding firm.

For the first time since they formed in 1995, the Blue Dogs have been out-organized by their liberal counterparts. The Congressional Progressive Caucus completed its first survey and began whipping back in the spring. They launched a final whip count last week that will be finished by Wednesday evening.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/23/dog-fight-dueling-whip-co_n_297207.html

Maybe they can do so until the Blue Dogs realize that at the end of the day, they want to be on the right side of history here.