David Both

The goal of Organizing for America yesterday, October 20th, was for 100,000 calls to congress to support President Obama’s health care plan including a strong public option.

How many calls did we make? 100,000 calls? Actually, we had made 100,000 calls by 3:15PM yesterday.

200,000? 300,000?

No! As of 6:45 this morning we have made over 315,500 calls to congress! And they are still being tallied.

You rock!

You are so fantastic to more than triple our original goal. Thanks for all your hard work yesterday, today, and every day!

Jenny U. from Missouri did what any parent would: When her son needed a kidney, she donated one of hers. But she didn’t realize insurance companies would use her kindness as an excuse to never cover her again, calling her donation a “pre-existing condition.”

My name is David Both and I am currently trying to get healthcare. My job at Cisco Systems went to India and I am currently trying to get coverage under my wife’s healthcare insurance. They tell me I have a “pre-existing condition” but have not specified what it is. They have asked for “proof of continuous coverage” from my ex-employer.

• Why should “continuous coverage” make a difference?
• Why should a “pre-existing condition” make a difference?

These are the abuses that we are fighting to change.

Now, insurance companies are spending millions on a campaign of lies to kill health reform that would help folks like Jenny and me. So, today, with crucial negotiations taking place in Congress, we’re raising our voices and making it clear: It’s time to deliver on reform.

We’ve set a big goal: 100,000 calls to Congress made or committed to in a single day. To hit it, we’ll need your help — will you take 3 minutes to call Congress now?

Call Congress Now

Call your representatives and tell them: It’s Time to Deliver on health reform. If you live in North Carolina’s 13th congressional district with me. Please call:

Sen. Richard Burr’s Rocky Mt office at (252) 977-9522
Sen. Kay Hagan’s Raleigh office at (919) 856-4630, or her Washington, DC office at 202-224-6342
Rep. Brad Miller’s Raleigh office at (919) 836-1313

(Not your representatives? Click here to look yours up.)

Health insurance reform is finally ready for consideration by the full Congress, and hundreds of insurance company lobbyists on Capitol Hill are working overtime to kill it. Calling is quick and easy, but effective — and your voice has tremendous power at this critical moment.

After you make your call, tell the staffer who picks up where you live and that you’re counting on Congress to deliver on health reform. Let them know that Americans like you support the President’s plan — and that if your representatives are working to pass it, they have your thanks.

If we hit 100,000 calls made or committed to, we’ll send an unmistakable signal that this time, families must come before insurance companies. We’ll be tracking progress toward our goal publicly — make sure to report your call back to us so we can count it:

http://my.barackobama.com/TTDCall

Alice and I were interviewed by the N&O for one in a series of articles about healthcare in America. Here is a link to the article which appeared this morning.

http://www.newsobserver.com/2995/story/1694714.html

Here are the unequivocal reasons why we don’t really need Health Care Reform in the US:

1. Although efforts have been made and failed to reform the healthcare industry since 1912, we should not be too hasty and rush into enacting change.
2. The federal government has no business interfering in people’s healthcare decisions, unless a woman is trying to terminate a pregnancy, go on contraception or the patient’s last name is Schiavo.
3. The government is incapable of running anything efficiently, and if allowed to offer a healthcare option, will run healthcare so efficiently that it will put private insurers out of business.
4. We are a Christian nation, and we don’t believe in helping the least among us. Some people just don’t deserve healthcare. Getting sick is God’s punishment for doing something wrong.
5. The current system, with 47,000,000 uninsured, a million medical bankruptcies annually, and 18,000 deaths annually due to lack of insurance, is working just fine. In fact, we have the best health care system in the world!
6. Even though many older couples are forced to divorce in order to avoid catastrophic financial losses due to medical expenses, it’s the homosexuals who are destroying families.
7. A conversation with your doctor about end-of-life issues is an opportunity for your doctor to convince you to kill yourself.
8. We can afford to spend more on our military than all other nations combined, but we can’t afford universal health care.
9. Single-payer, government-run healthcare is good enough for our men and women in uniform, for whom nothing is too good, but single-payer, government-run healthcare will offer substandard care to the rest of us. Besides, to offer the same healthcare to the general public that our armed forces, govt workers and their families already get would be socialism.
10. Pooling our resources to provide roads, schools, clean water, military, police, and fire protection for each other is not socialism. Pooling our resources to provide each other health care is socialism.
11. Socialism is bad. Very bad. Bad! Did we mention it’s bad?
12. Health care is an issue best handled by individual states; like slavery.
13. We can afford to subsidize Israel, Iraq, and Afghanistan, all of whom have universal healthcare, but we can’t afford it ourselves.
14. Money and corporate profits are more important than people’s health. Sure, reforming the insurance companies would save thousands of lives, but shareholders’ portfolios might be damaged.
15. Freeing people from holding on to their dead-end jobs for the insurance and allowing them to become entrepreneurs would bankrupt our country and devastate our markets, which depend upon entrepreneurial innovation.
16. Someone like physicist Stephen Hawking would have been allowed to die under the British healthcare system. Oh, he’s British? And he’s alive? — Never mind.
17. We already have universal health care: it’s called the Emergency Room. Uninsured people can go there for all their health needs (checkups, cancer pre-screening, chemotherapy, etc.), and it only costs the taxpayers a few thousand dollars per visit.
18. The Obama healthcare initiative is part of the liberal-communist-Nazi- socialist-Islamofascist-gay-atheist-zombie-transsexual-cannibal-feminist- sociopath-evolutionist agenda to take away your freedom! If this plan is passed, abortions will be mandatory, schoolchildren will be raped by their teachers, and Negroes (many of them born in some other country and only posing as citizens) will murder your Grandma with her pillow!

I just received this Letter from David Axelrod, Senior Adviser to the President. It has a great deal of information and the truth about Health are Reform in the United States. It details some very important information including:

1. 8 Ways reform provides security and stability to those with or without coverage.
2. 8 Common myths about health insurance reform.
3. 8 Reasons We Need Health Insurance Reform Now.

Links to supporting information are provided in the document so that folks can see the truth.

Read this Letter from David Axelrod, Senior Adviser to the President. Then send a copy of it to everyone you know. Use it as a basis for discussion with your neighbors and co-workers.

And here is another link I found on CNN today. Wendell Potter, whistle-blower and a former Cigna executive says that insurance companies are playing dirty tricks to manipulate public opinion. Read about it here.

I feel very fortunate to have been on stage with President Obama today at his health care town hall meeting here in Raleigh. Way kool!

I had made a request for tickets through the normal channels, but never heard back. They only called those who had actually been selected via a lottery. So I thought I would be spending today working as usual. NOT!

Monday afternoon I got an email from the Raleigh Chamber of Commerce. I joined early this year after getting laid off and starting up my own company, Millennium Technology Consulting LLC. Needless to say I called the Chamber as soon as I read the email. They needed to send my information to the White House and told me I could pick up my ticket on Tuesday if all went well. Tuesday morning I got a call letting me know I could pick up my tickets which I did almost immediately.

I went down early and parked at Cameron Village then walked to Broughton High School where the event was held. After waiting for a while outside, we went through security and hung out some more inside. There were about 60 other small business entrepreneurs there and we just hung out until they let us up onto the stage. Security checked our names off the list as we went up. Then we sat around for another hour or so until the program started.

It was so cool being up on stage with President.  I was very fortunate to be able to shake his hand twice; once at the beginning and again at the end.

Of course you can see or read about his health care message, but here is the gist of it in an email I received from the White House a little earlier today. If you care about health insurance and what it means to all of us, please read this message and take action as suggested at the end of his message. I have already visited in person with Brad Miller, our Congressperson, and have already and will continue to call our U.S. Senators, Hagan and Burr. This is important. Please take action now!

If you’re like most Americans, there’s nothing more important to you about health care than peace of mind.

Given the status quo, that’s understandable. The current system often denies insurance due to pre-existing conditions, charges steep out-of-pocket fees – and sometimes isn’t there at all if you become seriously ill.

It’s time to fix our unsustainable insurance system and create a new foundation for health care security. That means guaranteeing your health care security and stability with eight basic consumer protections:

• No discrimination for pre-existing conditions
• No exorbitant out-of-pocket expenses, deductibles or co-pays
• No cost-sharing for preventive care
• No dropping of coverage if you become seriously ill
• No gender discrimination
• No annual or lifetime caps on coverage
• Extended coverage for young adults
• Guaranteed insurance renewal so long as premiums are paid

Learn more about these consumer protections at Whitehouse.gov.
Over the next month there is going to be an avalanche of misinformation and scare tactics from those seeking to perpetuate the status quo. But we know the cost of doing nothing is too high. Health care costs will double over the next decade, millions more will become uninsured, and state and local governments will go bankrupt.

It’s time to act and reform health insurance, drive down costs and guarantee the health care security and stability of every American family. You can help by putting these core principles of reform in the hands of your friends, your family, and the rest of your social network.

Thank you,
Barack Obama

The health care crisis is crippling the United States. We need affordable health care and universal access to single-payer health care.

Go to Change Crew 07 to see what we are doing about it in Raleigh, North Carolina and how you can help.