Feb 08 2010

In Honor of Melanie Shouse: Share Your Health Care Stories

Published by Sarah VonEsch under Health care

As many of you read in David’s post, our friend, Melanie Shouse, died recently because her private insurer refused to cover her breast cancer treatments.   A tireless activist for health care reform, Melanie was known in her home state of Missouri and throughout the country as a passionate spokeswoman determined to fix our broken health care system.  Last Thursday, in fact, President Obama recognized Melanie ‘s activism and reaffirmed his determination to deliver on health care reform.

Last Friday, we sent out an e-alert to USAction/True Majority members about Melanie’s passing and subsequently launched a Facebook page for people to offer condolences to Melanie’s friends and family, share memories, express their support for health care reform and carry out simple action steps.    So far, more than 25,000 of you have expressed sympathy and as I write this, more than 4,800 of you have joined Melanie’s memorial Facebook page.

We’ve had so much help.  Our friends at MoveOn.org, Health Care for America Now and others have pitched in.  People are sharing their stories and realizing they are not alone in their struggles with the health care system.

Please share your story below.

Melanie’s death should drive us to action and we must strive for quality, affordable health care for all.  Every day Congress delays reform is another day lives are denied.

Melanie courageously shared her story because of the importance of putting a face on the need for health care reform.   Do you have friends or family who are struggling with similar experiences?  Please share your or their story in the comments section below.

One response so far

Feb 05 2010

Update: President Obama’s Remarks on Melanie Shouse

Published by Sarah VonEsch under Health care

As David wrote on Tuesday, our friend, Melanie Shouse, passed away because she did not recieve necessary care for her breast cancer.  A tireless advocate for health care reform, Melanie attracted attention of President Obama yesterday: 

I got a letter — I got a note today from one of my staff — they forwarded it to me — from a woman in St. Louis who had been part of our campaign, very active, who had passed away from breast cancer. She didn’t have insurance. She couldn’t afford it, so she had put off having the kind of exams that she needed. And she had fought a tough battle for four years. All through the campaign she was fighting it, but finally she succumbed to it. And she insisted she’s going to be buried in an Obama t-shirt. (Laughter.) But think about this: She was fighting that whole time not just to get me elected, not even to get herself health insurance, but because she understood that there were others coming behind her who were going to find themselves in the same situation and she didn’t want somebody else going through that same thing. (Applause.)

How can I say to her, “You know what? We’re giving up”? How can I say to her family, “This is too hard”? How can Democrats on the Hill say, “This is politically too risky”? How can Republicans on the Hill say, “We’re better off just blocking anything from happening.” That can’t be the message that the American people are delivering. Yes, they’re nervous, they’re anxious, they’re in a tough time right now. The thing they want most are jobs. They really don’t like the process in Washington, the sausage-making. That part I understand. But I know that they don’t — but I know they don’t want to just offer nothing to the millions of people in America who are in the situation that that woman was in.

That’s what we campaigned on. And we are going to keep on working to get it done — with Democrats and I hope with Republicans and everybody else in between — to bring down costs, to end the worst practices of the insurance industry, to finally give every American the chance to choose quality, affordable health care. We are going to keep on working to get it done. (Applause.)

 

 
Sadly, Melanie is just one of the tens of thousands of people who die every year because of a lack of health insurance or being under-insured. 

Stay tuned for more information.

4 responses so far

Feb 04 2010

Fix the Budget, Fix America

Published by Ross Wallen under Uncategorized

TrueMajority

Last year, we ended one plane and saved billions of dollars.

c-17s

These planes cost $2.5 billion.
Tell Congress to stop them.

take action

The $3.8 trillion budget that President Obama announced yesterday gives us a second chance to win the change in priorities we’ve sought for years.

Last year, TrueMajority members proved that sensible budgets CAN be achieved when we won a huge fight to end wasteful Pentagon projects like the F-22 fighter jet.

That victory saved billions of dollars that can now be used to build schools and restart the economy. This year we have a chance to save $2.5 billion MORE by ending the C-17, another plane we don’t need. (PDF, p. 12)

Tell Congress to stop building C-17s and other Pentagon toys we don’t need.

http://act.truemajorityaction.org/p/7002/bluepetition?petition_KEY=151

Sign now, and we’ll deliver your signature right away so your legislators read it while they’re considering the new budget. And we’ll start meeting with key members of Congress next week to make sure the message is understood.

This spring, we’ll roll out fun new gadgets that make the budget and Pentagon spending simple to understand, and we’ll ask for your help showing them off to thousands of new neighbors and friends this year on tax day. We’re going to need the extra help because the weapons builders and conservatives in Congress are already digging in for a fight.

Last year’s victory on the F-22 shows what’s possible. And we’ve already got key allies like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi examining ways to control military spending. So help us kick this campaign off right. Sign our petition, and then tell a few friends about the budget on Facebook or Twitter. Together we’ll shift the budget and a build a better country.

-Drew

Drew Hudson
TrueMajority / USAction

You can sign up to receive alerts from TrueMajority here.

One response so far

Feb 04 2010

Obama the Fighter?

Published by Neil Payne under Accountability, Health care, Jobs

I recently had a talk with my boss about the President’s performances last week, his state of the union speech and visit to a Republican retreat on Friday.

He told me that Obama appears to have earned a bump in the polls and it’s because,

the American public wants to see a fighter.

I agree. Politicians who stand with conviction are more likely to win votes than “wishy-washy” politicians that are harder to judge.

Did you see the President respond to questions from the GOP in Baltimore last week? It was referred to as a debate, a town-hall meeting and even a British Parliament-style exchange. Whatever you want to call it, I found the President’s interaction with conservative questioning quite refreshing.

Some Republicans think it was a mistake to allow this to take place with live cameras rolling.
I, on the other hand, along with many other observers, would like to see the President do the same thing again and also with Democrats. Giving us more access to the workings of our politicians will benefit of us all.

We didn’t have to wait long for another Presidential Q&A session, he took questions from Democrats this week (see video).  This meeting of Democrats was not all peaches and cream.  The President responded to Senator Lincoln, with forcefulness, that reaching out to Republicans, and adopting their policies, isn’t going to do any good.

I hope the President continues to fight and that other politicians join him.  Many Americans are suffering right now and some lives are in danger.  We need politicians who are actually fighting FOR something – namely, the more pressing issues, such as health care costs and access, stagnant wages and job loss.

As the activist says below, it’s time to show some backbone!

Show Some Backbone

2 responses so far

Feb 02 2010

Health care is not dead, but our friend is

Published by David Elliot under Health care, Local Action

See below for a Feb. 5th update.

Melanie Shouse died Saturday.

For many of us at USAction and TrueMajority, which had featured Melanie in a video action alert urging Congress to pass health care reform, the email message came as a surprise both somber and shocking:

Good Afternoon,
My niece, Melanie Shouse, was recently profiled on your website.  I am sorry to say that Melanie lost her battle with breast cancer early this afternoon.  We are sad to lose her, but we have promised to carry on the fight for health care reform in her honor.  She will have a memorial in Overland Missouri dedicated to her.  Please mention her passing on your website, she touched many lives before she gave her own.
Regards,
Elizabeth Holtzman-Goodden

To Elizabeth, and to Melanie, I’m sorry. I’m sorry we didn’t get health care reform done sooner. I’m sorry that health care isn’t more affordable and accessible for millions of Americans who need it.

Melanie had health insurance coverage. Sort of. Back in 2005 she was an entrepreneur struggling to grow her small business. She could only afford a catastrophic health insurance policy with co-pays and deductibles nearing $10,000.

So when the lump came, denial seemed the most pragmatic option. When diagnosis finally followed, the cancer had spread through her body to bone, lungs and liver. It was Stage 4 breast cancer.

At this point, Melanie had some coverage, in the form of Missouri’s Medicaid program – a public option, if you will. And she got better, for a spell. But then her private carrier denied coverage for a treatment her oncologist had recommended. She appealed, to no avail. “To paraphrase one of my favorite Congressman Barney Frank in response to an inflamed ‘teabagger,’ trying to reason with these insurance company bureaucrats is like trying to talk to a dining room table,” she said.

LaDonna Applebaum is a Missouri health care activist and a friend of Melanie’s. In the wake of Melanie’s death, she’s taken an action that Melanie would approve of: writing Senator Claire McCaskill and President Obama and telling them what happened.

In an email to local activists, LaDonna wrote: “I hope anyone reading this will call their lawmakers and scream that the Health Care bill is not dead but our dear friend is. I know Melanie wants us to keep fighting as she did.”

Melanie helped plan her memorial service with the help of Rabbi Susan Talvi of Central Reform Congregation. She chose to be cremated, wearing her Obama t-shirt. A memorial service will be held at 3 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 13 at Central Reform Congregation, 5020 Waterman in St. Louis. Melanie requested that those attending wear their activist t-shirts.

In lieu of flowers, let us remember why we fight and who we are fighting for.

No more health care deaths. In honor of Melanie Shouse on Facebook

Feb. 5 Update: Melanie’s story is reverberating around the country. Yesterday she attracted the attention of President Obama. Here are his remarks:

I got a letter — I got a note today from one of my staff — they forwarded it to me — from a woman in St. Louis who had been part of our campaign, very active, who had passed away from breast cancer. She didn’t have insurance. She couldn’t afford it, so she had put off having the kind of exams that she needed. And she had fought a tough battle for four years. All through the campaign she was fighting it, but finally she succumbed to it. And she insisted she’s going to be buried in an Obama t-shirt. (Laughter.) 

But think about this: She was fighting that whole time not just to get me elected, not even to get herself health insurance, but because she understood that there were others coming behind her who were going to find themselves in the same situation and she didn’t want somebody else going through that same thing. (Applause.)

How can I say to her, “You know what? We’re giving up”? How can I say to her family, “This is too hard”? How can Democrats on the Hill say, “This is politically too risky”? How can Republicans on the Hill say, “We’re better off just blocking anything from happening.” That can’t be the message that the American people are delivering. Yes, they’re nervous, they’re anxious, they’re in a tough time right now. The thing they want most are jobs. They really don’t like the process in Washington, the sausage-making. That part I understand. But I know that they don’t — but I know they don’t want to just offer nothing to the millions of people in America who are in the situation that that woman was in.

That’s what we campaigned on. And we are going to keep on working to get it done — with Democrats and I hope with Republicans and everybody else in between — to bring down costs, to end the worst practices of the insurance industry, to finally give every American the chance to choose quality, affordable health care. We are going to keep on working to get it done.

82 responses so far

Feb 01 2010

President Obama’s Budget is a Good Start, but More Needs to be Done

Published by David Elliot under Economy, Jobs, USAction

Alan Charney, campaign manager for Jobs for America Now, and policy director for USAction issued the following statement in response to President Obama’s fiscal year 2011 budget proposal:
FY11 Budget Proposal

“President Obama has proposed $100 billion for job creation, making this the first-ever significant jobs-creation budget. It’s a good start. In particular, we are pleased that the President’s budget helps states fund Medicaid at a time when state and local governments are feeling the dual pinch of greater demand for services and reduced revenue because of lower tax revenue. These funds will preserve and create jobs as well as prevent service reductions. And we are pleased that the proposed budget would include $2.5 billion in new funding for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, with special incentives for states to use the funds to create subsidized jobs to help poor parents now unable to find work.

“However, this proposal does not roll back the unemployment rolls. It does not go far enough to fundamentally alter the dire jobless crisis we face today. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the nation’s unemployment rate is expected to climb to about 10.7 percent by the end of the third quarter of this year. In nine states – California, Florida, Kentucky, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island and South Carolina – the unemployment rate will be over 12 percent, in some cases well over 12 percent. We currently are mired in a jobless recovery and only a big and bold effort by the federal government can extricate us from this economic and moral crisis.”

Charney added that the five-point program favored by Jobs for America Now, serving as a complement to President Obama’s budget, would create four million to six million jobs. The five-point jobs plan would:

  • Provide relief through continued and expanded unemployment benefits, COBRA and SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program). This relief aids those without jobs while at the same time creating jobs by boosting consumer spending.
  • Extend substantial fiscal relief to state and local governments. Without this aid, state and local governments will have to cut their budgets, budget cuts that would lead to substantial job losses in both the public and private sector.
  • Create jobs that put people to work helping communities meet pressing needs, including in distressed communities that face severe unemployment.
  • Invest in infrastructure improvements in schools, transportation and energy efficiency, thus providing jobs in the short run and productivity enhancements in the longer run.
  • Spur private-sector job growth through innovative incentives and providing credit to small and medium-sized businesses.

David Elliot is the Communications Director at USAction

No responses yet

Feb 01 2010

Greece Probably Gets a Bailout…California and New York Probably Don’t

Published by Michael Kamperman under Economy

By Michael A. Kamperman

The global sovereign bond markets have been shaken in the last few days. The same speculative short interests that ran like a pack of wolves and took down one bank after another until the federal government stepped forward with a national guarantee of Too-Big-to-Fail are looking to see if Greece and other fiscally weak nations in the euro get a bail-out of their own.

While there is hot rhetoric that Greece must stand on its own, in the end we all know if they fall, the wolf-pack will come for another and another and then they will come for us. As a member of the euro, Greece doesn’t control its money supply. For all practical purposes there is little difference between being in the euro or being on the gold standard. A sovereign nation in either situation doesn’t control its money supply. It cannot print or devalue its way out of its problems.

One of FDR’s biggest tools in stopping the steep 1933 slide into the economic abyss was ending the use of gold as money and then devaluing the U.S. dollar by 40% against the price of gold. Greece will either accept severe austerity and budget pain, or they will get a bail-out, or they will be forced out of the euro. In Greece, severe austerity will lead to unsustainable riots in the streets and so the options are either a bail-out or a force out. Since multiple other nations like Spain have similar problems to Greece, the time has come for the European nations to ban together or end the euro. Hence, the odds favor Greece getting an economic lifeline to heal its budgetary pain. The global depression has lowered tax revenues for all and raised social costs for all.

Yet after the State of the Union speech it is doubtful states like California or New York (not Nebraska) will receive the same economic lifeline probably coming to Greece. The President embraced a spending freeze (wink wink) after the elections in 2011, and a pay-as-you-go philosophy for handling the federal fiscal budget deficits. Therefore he left the states on their own to deal with substantial budget shortfalls despite bragging about saving the jobs of fireman, teachers, and police. New York City Mayor Bloomberg just unveiled a new city budget that cuts all 32 school nurses from elementary schools with less than 300 kids. And, the Mayor stated that if Governor Patterson’s state budget that calls for a $1.3 billion cut to NYC is enacted, then another 18,000 fireman, teachers, and police will join the nurses on the unemployment lines. The states cannot print money and unlike Greece they don’t have the option of pulling out and going it alone.

The President has sent a clear message: he is not serious about solving our economic problems. He embraced populist rhetoric when he should have used a chalkboard to explain why the federal government needs to bail out the states and put America back to work again. He should have said the value of everyone’s home and everyone’s 401(k) is on the line. Instead he threw an angry electorate the soundbites they wanted to hear. But few Americans with a vote understand the root causes of the economic crisis and fewer still understand the solutions needed to right the ship. All they know is things are not going the way they should and, like the people of the Middle Ages, they are willing to find witches and burn them. So anyone who stands up and says “Witch! Witch!” will get an audience.

Sadly it appears the White House is not only willing to give in to mass hysteria to win votes, it also appears the White House doesn’t have a clue as to how to solve the economic crisis. The big idea to get the economy going was to double exports in five years. Well, I wouldn’t look to Greece to double its purchases of U.S. goods and I didn’t hear the President demand China open up its markets to us. While the President sounded good, the subtle message to NYC is get those pink slips ready.

Michael A. Kamperman is author of How America Can Escape the New Great Depression. This entry is cross-posted from http://www.escapethenewgreatdepression.com

One response so far

Jan 29 2010

Progressive Strategy on Jobs and Economic Justice

Published by Alan Charney under Economy, Jobs

The current economic crisis is different from any recession the U. S. has experienced since the Great Depression. Unlike previous recessions, private sector investment will not be the primary engine of job creation to get us out of this Great Recession. Unless there is a bold and prolonged effort from the federal government to generate several million jobs, we will be looking at the prospect of a “jobless recovery” with unacceptably high levels of unemployment and underemployment for years to come.

There is no quick fix for this jobs crisis. The $800 billion stimulus package passed in early 2009 was a good first step – but only a first step. In the short-term, the new Jobs for America Now coalition is proposing a five-point plan to create jobs: strengthen the safety net and provide relief for those directly impacted by the recession; provide fiscal relief to the states; progressive taxes/revenue to finance job creation and economic recovery; direct creation of public service jobs; and investments on infrastructure, especially school construction, maintenance, and repair. But even if this entire program were enacted this year, it would be a necessary next step, but still nowhere near sufficient to guarantee long-term job growth.

Do The Right ThingAmericans are outraged at the immediate economic crisis, but they are also outraged at the repeated refusal by politicians to address the long-term squeeze on the middle class. The two crises that make up our economic situation – the financial collapse and the lack of long-term job creation and wage growth - are at the root of the populism spreading throughout the country. We need to address these crises head-on.

The private sector won’t create jobs until people start spending, because we have a consumer-based economy. But people don’t have enough money to spend – why? The answer to that question lies in understanding the two-fold crises we face right now.

For a variety of reasons, wage growth has remained stagnant since the 1970s. Since then, the cost of living has increased, especially because energy and health care are too expensive. In order to maintain their standard of living, Americans began to take on increasing amounts of debt, especially in the form of home mortgages and credit cards. For a while, the steady rise in housing prices allowed people to live off debt, and buy homes previously out of reach with a sense of security that they would soon be worth more than they had paid.

As more Americans sought to buy homes, mortgage lenders encouraged people to take on risky loan agreements called “subprime mortgages.” Subprime loans allowed people with bad credit, low income, or few assets to be able to buy homes. Payments for these loans often started at a very low rate, but would increase a significant amount – sometimes 75% or more – after short period of these easy initial terms.  Many included higher additional fees than normal loans, on an annual or up-front basis as well as for late payments and going over one’s credit limits. But it was not just people with bad credit who ended up with bad loans.

Save Our HomesMany mortgage brokers would be paid more for steering people into subprime loans with higher interest rates, even if their clients had credit that would qualify them for better loans. Aggressive lending and marketing practices, confusing or deceptive loan agreements, lack of oversight of lenders and financial literacy for borrowers, all combined with a direct profit motive that contradicted the interests of borrowers, allowed for people to sign-on to loans they could not pay over the long-term. Lenders used similar practices in marketing credit cards, payday loans, and auto loans. By the end of 2006, 61% of subprime mortgages were held by people with strong credit scores that should have allowed them to get reasonable mortgages. Subprime lending in the U.S. exploded in the past decade: $2.5 trillion in subprime loans were made in 2000-07.

The financial sector got involved in buying up mortgages because they too believed that they were safe, profitable assets. This is where things got complicated: banks that provided the loans to home buyers then sold the loans to financial institutions, which bundled them together into packages. These financial institutions then sold bundled mortgages to investors through the creation of such products as mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations (these are also called “derivatives”). These financial products allowed investors from around the world to invest in the U.S. housing market. Moreover, hedge funds and investment banks also became sources of credit, but did not face the same regulations as other banks.

The people managing the loans no longer owned them – refinancing and debt forgiveness for people who couldn’t afford their homes was complicated because the legal responsibility and ownership became dispersed amongst many parties, and bundled together with other mortgages.

Many people know how the story goes from here.  With the assumption that housing prices would rise forever, the financial sector took on billions of dollars in loans that people could not afford, and made other investments against those loans. Housing prices nationally were overvalued by about 50%. When housing prices fell, people began to default on their loans—even people who made significant down payments—and eventually America’s largest financial institutions found that billions of dollars on their balance sheets were worthless.

At this point, the banks needed cash. The damage to the banks’ balance sheets caused by the loss in asset values forced them to sell off other assets. That in turn decreased the value of, and undermined confidence in, many other assets. Banks no longer had cash to cover their bad investments—causing some to fail completely—and they stopped small business and corporate loans.

The financial crisis was a direct result of the fall in housing prices, and the lack of regulation of financial institutions and their lending and investing practices described above. The root of the problem has to do with the stagnation of real wages for Americans, which pushed people to take on more and more debt in order to maintain their standard of living.

We have to seize every legislative opportunity we can in the first months of 2010 to press Congress and the Obama Administration on our immediate five-point program. Tactically, this should be the highest priority for progressives right now. Similarly, in the months leading up to November, our tactical priority will shift to making the urgency of job creation the central frame for the Congressional elections.

But, these tactical priorities are embedded in a larger strategic context. We need to build a broad-based movement for a new era of mass prosperity, while assuring that those who have historically been excluded from the prior era of prosperity, particularly communities of color, are central to this new movement.

Concurrently, we need to win the battle of ideas that mass prosperity cannot be achieved without structural reforms in the overall economy. These reforms have two dimensions. For the financial sector, it means not only regulatory reforms but also containing and rolling back the size and scope of the largest financial institutions and preventing spurious economic growth based on financial bubbles and asset inflation.

For the underlying economy, it means promoting an array of public initiatives that create jobs and strengthen the workforce: winning health care reform, advancing climate change and green jobs, greatly expanding educational opportunities, renewing infrastructure, reviving distressed communities, expanding worker rights, achieving immigration reform, and redressing trade imbalances.

Job creation that benefits the vast majority and that results in a long-term expansion of real income requires both strong government action to prevent a repeat of the current economic crisis, and public investments that lead the way in restructuring and growing our economy.

In my next post, I will evaluate progressive strategy in 2009 to show what we need to do differently this year.

Alan Charney is Strategy and Policy Director at USAction.

5 responses so far

Jan 28 2010

President Obama’s Speech: Right on Health Care, but Jobs Proposals Don’t Go Nearly Far Enough

President Obama Wednesday night failed to lay out a jobs program robust enough to extricate the country from its unemployment crisis and his proposal to cap domestic spending would lead the nation in the wrong direction, USAction said today.

 At the same time, USAction expressed support for Obama’s determination to pass health care reform and announced that its 27 state affiliates and partners will continue to press Congress on the issue.

  ”We are pleased that the President understands the urgency in passing health care reform this year,” said Alan Charney, USAction Program Director. “But we are disappointed that he did not propose a jobs program that is as massive and robust as the problem he inherited. And a freeze on domestic spending at this time takes us in the wrong direction. Spending caps never created a single job, cared for a sick child or kept a family in its home by staving off home foreclosure.”

 Charney added that the savings we would gain from Obama’s proposal to freeze domestic spending is dwarfed by the hundreds of billions of dollars the country is spending to escalate the war in Afghanistan.

USAction is a multi-issue organization that believes government should play a key role in promoting opportunity, prosperity and security for all Americans. USAction’s agenda in 2010 includes health care reform, jobs and economic recovery, effective financial regulation, fair tax policies and bringing a responsible end to the war in Afghanistan.

 USAction has helped organize Jobs for America Now, a coalition of 64 national groups that is working to address the jobs crisis. Jobs for America Now - and USAction - believe that only significant government intervention, including jobs programs, tax incentives for small businesses and aid to state and local government, will help America extricate herself from this crisis.

 Today, USAction’s Charney will participate in a 3 p.m. webinar sponsored by Jobs for America Now. Nearly 700 activists from across the United States have registered for the webinar, which will lay out the causes behind the jobless crisis, how to solve it and action steps that Jobs for America Now is planning. To register, please visit www.bostonconference.com/chn.

David Elliot is the Communications Director at USAction.

One response so far

Jan 27 2010

U.S. Chamber of Commerce Protest and Rally Videos

We know the U.S. Chamber of Commerce heard the voices of 250 people rallying for real health care reform and against corporate lobbyists outside their DC office. And with national news coverage, we know that a lot more people heard the stories of 15 families that came to push back on the hundreds of millions of dollars the Chamber and the insurance industry are spending to stop health care reform.

The Washington Post has a short video with Leslie Boyd and Christine Grewell sharing the stories that compelled them to come to Washington, DC yesterday and let the Chamber know that people have the power in this country and that they refuse to let corporate interests corrupt and derail our legislative process.

After protesting and rallying with her four children at her side, Stacie Ritter and her twin daughters made their way to an evening interview with Dylan Ratigan on MSNBC. Watch below as she courageously takes her family’s story from the rally in the streets in front of the Chamber to the living rooms of America.

The profits-before-people practices of the insurance industry and corporate lobbyists have led to abuse, physical and financial hardship and even loss of life for these families. We should all be thankful these families are willing to share their extremely personal, heart-rending stories with the world. Without their voices and stories, the urgency and importance of reform and the human suffering that results from our broken health care system runs the risk of being lost in the polling, media, and political firestorms that guide the Beltway narrative.

Now is not the time to slow down; America’s economy and families need Congress to step up and finish reform now and finish reform right.  We must continue to fight and make sure that other families across the country do not ever have to go through the same painful, dehumanizing experiences that the 15 families who came to DC yesterday were forced to go through.

Please call and write your Representatives and Senators, leadership in the House and Senate, and the White House and let them know that Amercia refuses to wait any longer for reform.

3 responses so far

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