Healthcare Reform, my letter to the editor

Editor,

As I write, conservatives are doing a victory dance over what they perceive to be the corpse of meaningful healthcare reform. Congress’s recess gives them, and the insurance lobbies, time to scare people with lies and misrepresentations; healthcare rationing, lack of choice in your healthcare, government bureaucrats (rather than corporate bureaucrats) making healthcare decisions, and the most ridiculous canard, proposed euthanization of senior citizens. My fellow Democrats are we going to let them get away with this again?

Remember the caucuses when so many people showed up that schools were scrambling to find extra rooms for us? Remember the convention at Central High? It was standing room only.

We got Salazar and Udall elected. We knocked on doors and made phone calls and donated way more than we could afford to put these people in office. Why? Because even in 2007 we could see the damage conservatives had wrought to the economy, to our freedom, our safety, our civil liberties, our standing in the world, and to our society in general.

Remind your representatives that conservatives are never going to vote for them no matter what happens with healthcare reform. And worse yet, if we don’t pass healthcare reform that contains a strong public option, then 2010 will see another republican revolution. Successful healthcare reform will bring the independent votes back.

If our representatives want to keep their jobs, remind them who put them in office. Salazar’s voice mail is full right now but I’m going to keep calling and calling and calling. His number is 202-225-4761. (My thanks to Mark Brown for this information.) You need to call, email, fax, whatever it takes.

What are you waiting for? Get busy. There’s still a lot of work to do!

Joan Cron
Clifton