"Letters to Pres. Barack Obama" A simple Pro-Healtlh Care Reform letter writing campaign

Building on the work of others:

"Kid Oakland", a Diarist at the Daily Kos, wrote a entry of which I include the introduction where he explains his idea and suggestion, the post got 387 comments, I don't know how many, maybe half, or one third, hard to know, but in these comments, Kossacks tell of sending a letter and they post the text hoping that if someone who doesn't feel like, or it is difficult to compose a letter, can use the text, or modify it, the important part is that the encouragement is to write a letter.

Below I include a few sample letters that, in following with the sentiments in the Diary, you can cut and paste and modify to your particular info and send. If you just want to send a simple and small message, here is a pre-formatted Email Click
to email Email info@barackobama.com - If you want to send directly to the White House using their Email Form where you can paste your modified text, you can do it here,

If you want to email to President Obama, it is really quite simple, there is a list of Subject Lines to choose from (Short Msgs. are more effective), you can do it here, you can view letters sent to leaders here, letters to the President here.

Well, that's it, maybe it will make a difference, maybe it won't, but in the opinion of many, the least we can do is try - President Obama campaigned with a promise of change, advocating a set of values, well, IT IS TIME TO LIVE UP TO THEM! Wouldn't you agree?

Best wishes,

Aurora

letters to Obama

by kid oakland

Did you donate to Barack Obama? Did you volunteer to support his campaign?
Do you get his emails? (Heck, maybe like me, you got one today.)

Have you noticed that they all come from info@barackobama.com?

Did you know that you can write Barack Obama using that email address?
Further, did you know that when you write to Barack Obama at info@barackobama.com, that Barack
Obama's staff at barackobama.com will be able to see right away from your email address that you were a donor or a volunteer to his campaign?

Well, it's true. And it's powerful. Trust me. Politicians notice when their donors and volunteers write them an email. There's 13 million of us on Barack Obama's email list. Do you think he'd notice if we all wrote him this weekend about the need for healthcare reform?

This weekend I've got a simple, straightforward action we all can take to help pass comprehensive healthcare reform with a robust public insurance option open to all Americans.

Dear President Obama,

My name is XXXXXX and I am writing to you today as a volunteer and a donor to express my firm support for the passage of comprehensive healthcare reform including a robust public insurance option open to all Americans.

I had the privilege of volunteering for your campaign in XXXXX, XXXXX, where I walked a precinct in XXXXX during the XXXXX primary and built a MyBO community group in my neighborhood. I also wrote a series of well-read blog posts online explaining your policy views...including your support for healthcare reform that provided a public insurance option available to all Americans that would rein in costs and force insurance companies to be honest. I pent the general election in XXXXXX where we worked side-by side-with your campaign to help you win an electoral vote in XXXXXXX's 2nd Congressional District.

Mr. President, I am XX years old, in good health, and I pay over $XXX.00 a month merely to have a generic health insurance policy. For that $X,XXX.OO a year I am still subject to numerous rules and deductibles that limit my care and my security. But I'm not writing you today simply about myself.

I know firsthand the idealism and principled conviction that led millions to support you. In 2008, we were a nation hungry for change. We still are today. Millions of voters, young and old, from all walks of life and political points of view, cast a vote for you because you embodied hope. Hope for a real change in business as usual in Washington. But we all know that business as usual is powerful.

Mr. President, big, for-profit companies have dominated healthcare for too long in the United States. They've made money while excluding some of us, bankrupting others, and causing millions of Americans to live in fear of losing their jobs or getting ill.

It doesn't have to be that way. Big insurance corporations have had their chance to rein in costs and they've failed. We need a change. But for change to happen we need your principled leadership today. Mr. President, please use your speech to the nation this Wednesday to lead Congress to deliver comprehensive healthcare reform that includes a robust public insurance option available to all Americans.

Sincerely
XXXX XXXXXX
CITY, STATE

Dear President Obama,

I have been a fervent supporter and donor to your campaign. I believed you when you said that the current health care/health insurance crisis was destroying our country. I have been sickened by the thuggery and scare tactics on the right about something all America needs so badly.

People suffer and die. Businesses and individuals go bankrupt because the insurance and pharmaceutical companies siphon off their outrageous profit on pain. You know our country needs a public option. You know it is the only solution to this problem. You know that you will lose support and that your followers will lose hope if you waver on this issue. This is the time to stand
firm not, compromise with people's lives.

I know you are the best president I can hope for in my lifetime. If you yield on this issue your followers will sink back into despair that allowed Bush/Cheney to run amok, and new thugs and fear mongers will win and unleash new horrors on the world.

I believe that you are a good and extremely gifted man, and that you must realize how crucial your strength is now. Please do not compromise on America's future now.

Respectfully

NAME

Dear Mr. President,

You are asking for monetary support to "beat the special interests"? I need to hear that you are trying to beat the special interests. I am waiting to see what President Obama says about and actively fights for the Public Option before I donate any more time or money. I need to see follow through on what Candidate Obama said when he put forth his http://HealthCareFullPlan.pdf and what I talked to people about when I hustled up votes for him.

As Bill Moyers said in his special comment (http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/09042009/watch3.html) we need the President to fight and show leadership and stop negotiating with the crazy liars on the Right who will never compromise and only want his demise. Do not ask the Progressives how much change they are willing to negotiate away.

Stop protecting the Blue Dogs who will not support any real health reform that does not protect the industry. Stop taking progressive support for granted.

People are dying because of the greedy homicidal health care industry. We are where we are because of their "management". The only "health" they are truly concerned with are their profits and CEOs salaries. We have the most shameful, unfairly-distributed health care system of all the industrialized nations.

I believed Candidate Obama when he said he wanted a comprehensive health care plan that included a strong public option, not just a mandate to force people to buy junk insurance from the same corrupt companies denying care now. Why does it seem he is going back on his word to his very SUPPORTERS during the campaign and trying to appease those in the minority who did not support him and NEVER will?

We compromised away single payer which was the best solution for America. We compromised it away with substituting a strong public option. The message can and should be simple: We should be able to voluntarily buy into Medicare before age 65, period.

The infrastructure is there and it works. No co-ops. No more corporate giveaways. No toothless regulations that can be dismantled. No triggers. A strong voluntary Medicare-for-anyone option. It can start immediately. It can keep the corrupt health insurance industry honest -- indeed it is the only thing that can. This is what President Obama campaigned on.

Health care reform for America is crucial. It is life and death, literally. For many I spoke to during the campaign, it was the vote-getting issue. It is HUGE! Now is the time. We can not and should not settle for anything less than the real thing. Any bill that the insurance or pharmaceutical industries can support will be bad news for us consumers.

The final bill MUST include no pre-existing conditions, no lifetime caps, no triggers, and a strong public option (Medicare).

PLEASE: Find your campaign fight! Start this process from scratch if you must. Use leadership and reconciliation! And get what you said you would get done for America, done!

Keep your promises and stand behind that record. Then come and ask me for my support in time and money. I'll be happy to give it then. Not before.

In the meantime, everything I can spare goes to the members of the Progressive Congressional Caucus.

Respectfully

NAME

Dear Mr. President,

My name is XXXXXXX and I was one of your millions of donors and volunteers. I supported you from the primaries on and convinced my family to do the same. I am writing today to ask that you keep your campaign promise. Give Americans a choice between private insurers and a public option. I don’t support a trigger, a co-op or any watered-down proposal. The public option, as you yourself pointed out during the campaign, is the compromise.

When the primaries started, the first thing I did was read through each candidates’ health care plans. Here’s just one of the reasons why health care is my top issue. [Personal story about a pre-existing condition fight] Because of this brief coverage lapse, my insurance company could now flag me as a
pre-existing condition. It didn’t matter that there was no merit to their claim, nor that I was now insured. It only mattered they had an entire department to pursue the matter. [More personal details, the hospital ended writing off my care, the insurance company didn't pursue the matter further] The hospital bore the costs of the insurance company’s greed. Since that time, so many hospitals in my area have closed due to financial problems. We are all paying the price for the insurance companies’ profits.

[Personal details about what I pay each month for the privelege of being insured] Still, I am one of the lucky ones. Insurance companies have had their chance, now it is time to truly insure all Americans.

Insurance companies have had decades to provide affordable insurance to all. Instead they have spent that time devising rules and fine print to exclude people from coverage and denying services to those who do have coverage. If we create new rules and give insurance companies more time, they will only find new ways to get around those rules. The end result will be more people who can’t afford to go to the doctor and even more bankruptcies. Mr. President, insurance companies have already failed. I am asking for true healthcare reform with a public option to keep the insurance companies honest.

I refuse to allow more millions of people to go through what I did. I know what it’s like to stay up at night and wonder if you’ll have to file bankruptcy...

Your supporters did not work so hard to elect a Democratic President and large majorities in both houses of Congress, only to cover just some Americans. Keep your campaign promise to myself and the millions of others who sit up at night wondering what will happen to them. Insuring 20 million is not good enough. How will the Democrats come back to those supporters who don’t get insured under a watered-down plan and ask for their votes? How will they look these people in the eyes? Do the right thing. Pass a healthcare plan with a public option. It’s why so many of us volunteered and donated even though we could barely afford to do either.

Sincerely,

XXXXX

Dear President Obama,

My name is XXXXXX and I donated to your historic campaign on many occasions, from the lead up to the XXX caucuses all the way through November 5th. All in all, it came to a little over $XXX.00, I believe. That may not seem like much, but it was not easy to do. Even though I couldn't afford to donate, I did so anyway because you vowed to bring change we can believe in. I viewed it
as an investment in my family's future. On election night, as the networks called Ohio for you, I never felt more hopeful for my country and for my family.
I was determined to do my part to help you restore the promise that this country has always represented to so many.

So it saddens me that I cannot donate financially to this cause. I cannot give my hard earned money when I fear that it will be wasted. You campaigned that you would get health insurance reform with a strong public insurance option to help keep the greed of the insurance companies in check.
Health insurance reform without a strong public option is not real health insurance reform at all. Yet, it seems that your administration is willing to give up the public option, even though anywhere from 55-77% of Americans want it based on recent polling. I dread the possibility that you are willing to settle for a weaker but more easily attainable bill, rather than fighting for what this country really needs. During your campaign you gave a speech in South Carolina where you said:

I don’t believe we can bring about real change if all we do is change our positions based on what’s popular or politically convenient...I think you deserve a President who’s willing to fight for you every hour of every day for the next four years. That’s the change we can offer in 2008 – not change as a slogan, but change we can believe in.

The voices of 70 million strong were heard loud and clear last November 5th, please don't allow our voices to be drowned out now. Because that's not change we can believe in.

Sincerely,

XXXXX XXXXXX

Dear President Obama,

My name is XXXX XXXXXXX, and I am writing to you today as a volunteer and a donor to express my firm support for the passage of comprehensive healthcare reform including a robust public insurance option open to all Americans.

I donated more money to your campaign than I have any campaign in my lifetime. In addition, I worked with my local Democratic party to mobilize voters for the primary purpose of electing you because I believed in your message of change.

However, the latest fight for health care reform has left me very disheartened. In the below email, terms are used such as "fight for health insurance reform", "campaign for real reform", and especially "finally get the health insurance reform we all need." But lately all that I've seen and heard after beginning the "fight" by compromising on single-payer are calls for "compromise" and "bipartisanship" with Republicans who have plainly expressed no desire to participate in any legitimate discussion of health care reform. In addition, the administration seems ready, and all too willing, to compromise away the public option, the only real chance to get true health care reform in
this country. That's not change I can believe in - that's continued compromise of the values that elected a dominant majority of Democrats to both houses and lifted Obama to an overwhelming victory.

Frankly, I have no desire to continue to support politicians who consider compromise and bipartisanship to be higher values than the values they professed to believe in when campaigning, only to appear to have no will to enact change in accordance with those values when holding the majorities they claimed to need to do so. My money and time from this point will be going to candidates who currently support the public option and to the primary opponents of those who do not, and considering that poll after poll continue to show a significant majority that support the public option as well, I'm sure that I'm not alone in that regard.

There is still time for the you to display the leadership needed to obtain true change in the form of the public option. While the other changes to insurance reform that you've outlined are certainly valuable, big insurance corporations have had decades to rein in costs and they've failed. We need a change - and we need a strong public option available to all Americans to ensure that change. Mr. President, I hope that when you return you choose to lead Congress to deliver health care reform that includes a robust public insurance option to reinforce the faith of the millions of us that were initially inspired by your message of hope but have become disheartened.

Sincerely

XXX XXXXXX

CITY, STATE

"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek."

(The words from Obama's February 2008 Election Night speech have become almost legendary, with "We are the ones" featuring in many of his ads and commercials. It's the "we" that's most important here.)