A senior Congressional legislative aide called me this morning on background as follows.
We must begin to organize a massive and unprecedented telephone call in campaign for passage of healthcare reform, to begin at 9AM EST on February 24th and extend through the entire day of the presidential healthcare meeting on February 25th.
This senior Congressional aide (who asked at this time to remain anonymous), advised that nothing less than a citizen outpouring the likes of which members of Congress have never seen, will be sufficient to get healthcare legislation passed.
I wish that I had better news for you guys. It seems unreasonable to ask for more calls after you already spent weeks talking Congress back from a ledge (granted, without you the party might be pavement pizza already). Now I have to pass on that Democrats are still hanging ten on a marble balcony and only a few more items on your long distance bill can maybe save them from themselves.
For the most part constituent pressure only works at the margins, so our chances of a win remain slim. On the other hand we don’t need very many votes to wrap this up. At least it feels better than shouting at the TV.
Switchboard: (202) 224-3121. Tell your Representative to Pass. The. Damn. Bill. Tell your Senators to get behind a reconciliation fix for the excise tax and whatever else is holding up the process. Call Republicans too! Give them hell for behaving like useless obstructionist twits, and ask whether they plan to support privatizing Social Security and Medicare.
Guide for first-timers here.
Poll.
If you need motivation, read Kevin Drum and this diary at Kos.
***Update***
Since Capitol Hill is closed, try your Reps’ local office. Those of you in PA, MD, NoVA, OH, DC and NJ might have to wait until Friday or next week.
gopher2b
I hate this poll. I always put no calls but I live in Chicago and there really isn’t a point to me calling anyone.
I just wanted to tell you that your poll makes me feel bad.
chopper
no answer today (makes sense, the federal government is closed again today). my rep’s mailbox is full so i can’t leave a message, not that that would make any difference.
arguingwithsignposts
Forgive me for being the party-pooper here, but this is bullsh*t. These people have been getting calls for weeks. They have polls saying the majority of Americans favor HCR. They have the president on record saying he wants a bill. Doing a dog-and-pony show on Feb. 24 is not going to push this bill over, and I’d rather see giant puppet heads, honestly. And I say this as someone who called his rethuglican representative’s washington office a couple of weeks ago for all the good that did.
It’s long past time for legislators to do their damned jobs. I’m sick of the phone-banking stuff.
If they can’t see the thousands of their constituents suffering under the current system, they can DIAF.
/rant
Svensker
It’s fine to call now and keep calling. But I do think a coordinated call-in on the 24th and 25th could really pay dividends. If anything IS going to pay dividends.
Keith G
@gopher2b:
Likewise. I live in Houston. My Senators are bluer thasn Smurfs and Culbertson, my rep, is a ‘bagger wanta-a-be.
And no, I will not waste my time chatting up the peeps who work there.
Sadness.
The Moar You Know
You are aware that nyceve is one of Jane Hamsher’s employees, are you not, Tim?
I hate to say it, but I don’t trust her motivations. I also don’t trust her claims of constant being in contact with members of Congress and/or their reps. I guess you could say I don’t trust her, or her little DKos buddy slinkerwink, at all, for calling repeatedly for the bill to be killed and then doing the world’s fastest about-face when they realized that they might actually succeed, and get the blame for it.
I have had no problem calling my rep – he won’t vote for it and that is that – so I won’t be calling him again.
jibeaux
How about another poll option: “I have put it on my calendar, with alarm notifications if necessary, to call my Congresscritters on both the 24th and 25th of February”? That’s what I’m doing right now.
JenJen
It’s snowing like a mutha again here in southwestern Ohio, so yeah, I’m thinking Boehner, Driehaus and Schmidt’s staffs didn’t make it in to their local offices this morning either.
aimai
I’ll call, of course, but I don’t expect to get very far. My experience is that on a major issue like Health Care the fix is in–that is, the caucus has decided what its going to do, or the levers that move votes aren’t at the base but at the top. Its been my complaint all along with the (many) people who hold the naysayers on the left responsible for killing the bill. I just don’t see that constituents calling in has the slightest impact on strategy and numbers that are set at the top level. When I called my rep, Capuano, and asked that he “pass the senate bill” I was told specifically that Capuano had yet to read the entire Senate Bill and that the leadership in the house were still deciding what they were actually presenting to their members. If “passing the senate bill” as is is not what Pelosi is insisting on, with charts and graphs and arguments, then its not going to get passed. If she is planning on this strategy, then maybe calls to wavering conservadems will matter.
As for the Senate, they are fixed in amber.
aimai
madmatt
Yes beacuse something has changed, what a joke! It will never pass and it shouldn’t pass…as one of the sick who would be helped by a REAL bill, this mess does nothing but penalize me financially while giving me nothing to help with my illness.
The system WILL NOT WORK!
jibeaux
@madmatt:
Whatchu got, the rabies, madmatt? Dunder Miflin did a fundraiser.
chopper
well, got through at the local office and got a staffer who wouldn’t be direct about my rep’s vote. i live in a heavily dem district and my rep has stated before that she has reservations about the bill and earlier was one of the 60 pledging to vote no on it.
however, her office has gotten a slew of calls demanding she vote yes, and i at least added my name to that list.
El Cid
I think these sorts of mass and coordinated grassroots actions are valuable if nothing else in terms of having some sort of action on the part of the citizenry — even if there’s no way of knowing, and perhaps a low likelihood, the chance of successful impact.
Bill H
Look, the public was massively against the initial TARP as proposed by Paulson, with calls 100:1 against it. So the Senate said no to Paulson’s one-page plan, added several hundred pages to it and then, once the voters could no longer understand that it was exactly the same plan, passed it.
Michael
I’m going to go the shitty route, and will say up front that I think that Eve, slinky and the rest of the fucking morons at FDL are trying to come up with a way to restore Jane the Ignorant Slut’s status by taking credit for the passage of something.
It isn’t going to work with me. I am still going to despise and smacktalk them until the heat death of the universe for being snide, manipulative, pandering, grasping paid activists*spit* who accomplish nothing while sucking up resources and time. I know what they are, and they need to shut the fuck up and take real jobs where they’re accountable.
FlipYrWhig
The insider tipster stuff sounds like an immense pile of bullshit, but I’m sure it doesn’t hurt to call.
madmatt
jibeaux =Fuck you, I might get well someday, you’ll always be a scumbag!
jibeaux
@madmatt:
Dude, you come around here with that kind of weak crap, you’re gonna get snark from the more bored among us. It’s kind of our thing.
beltane
@The Moar You Know: nyceve’s game was to call for killing the bill, and then threatening to leave the Democratic party if Congress didn’t pass the bill.
Mega activism fail.
Phyllis
Called my congressman’s* local office. The staffer I spoke to there(a former colleague) said they are getting ‘don’t pass the bill’ calls, because the people for it assume that because the Representative is for it, they don’t need to call. The staffer said people who are for it need to call.
John PM
My two Senators from Illinois are on board, so nothing more to be done there. My rep is Roskam, who is a complete and total douche. He is the extent of his comments on healthcare reform:
On the surface, I do not disagree with anything, but there are no details. On closer inspection, of course, these five points are a bunch of nonsense.
(1) There already is a lot of transparency. It seems to me that if you want to force greater transparency, you might need to get the government involved.
(2) I like medical innovation; however, it seems to me that a lot of medical innovation comes from medical researchers doing research because they are receiving research grants from the federal government. I am unaware of how insurance companies help spur medical innovation, since they are very willing to deny thousands of claims by stating that certain techniques are unproven and thus uncovered.
(3)I still do not know how tort reform is going to help keep down health insurance costs. Presumably Roskam wants to make it harder for patients to sue their doctors. But why stop there? Shouldn’t we also make it harder to sue product designers and manufacturers, who have a much greater impact on health care costs than a few bad doctors. Also, wouldn’t it decrease costs to prevent people from suing due to slipping and falling on ice in the winter. I mean, why should some dumbshit running after his dog in, for example, West Virginia, hit the lottery when he slips and falls on ice and, hypothetically, busts his (or her) shoulder.
(4) My understanding is that under Medicare, a patient can see any doctor he or she wants, whereas under private insurance, you can only see doctors in the plan if you want to receive full benefits. It seems to me that government is better at making certain you can choose the doctor you want.
I think I have found my talking points with Roskam. I will call him today and demand that he vote for the Senate bill and also vote for reconcilliation. I do not think I will get anywhere, but I will try.
John PM
I forgot to mention that Roskam also has a page on why ACORN is a criminal organization. Important stuff. Perhaps I can ask him if he plans on applying this same analysis to Goldman Sachs, for example.
chopper
@John PM:
it won’t. ‘tort reform’ is one of those red herrings wingers bring up. after you ask them for specifics of how much it would help, they disappear.
its similar to the winger idea that you can balance the budget by first cutting foodstamps. when you ask for numbers to back that up, they’re already gone.
Jim C.
I called my Congressman (Walt Minnick) several times recently. I finally got a response in the form of a letter he sent me.
I’ve typed in the text of the letter here.
“Dear (my name):
Thank you for contacting me about the health care reform legislation being debated in Congress. Like you, I want to find smart ways to reduce the ever-increasing cost of health care while making insurance easier and more accessible to all Americans.
Although I very much agree with the need to improve and reform our health care system, I do not believe the House bill was the right way to hold insurance companies accountable and bring change to our overly burdened health care system. I know you mnight be disappointed with my vote against the bill, but I hope you will take a moment to understand why I voted as I did.
First, I believe very strongly that our government must show much more fiscal accountability, and that is my responsibility as your Congressman to make sure we do not enact new spending programs which are not fully paid for and which worsen our already out of control federal budget deficit.
Second, I oppose the creation of a new, government-run health insurance system. Instead, I believe we should regulate existing private insurance carriers so that they no longer deny reasonably priced coverage to those with medical preconditions or charge exorbitant co-pays. Insurance reforms combined with allowing insurance companies to compete across state lines is a better way to reduce insurance costs and increase consumer choice.
Finally, I believe any reforms must reduce the cost of delivering high quality health care in our country. Yet this bill did little to do that, keeping in place a structure that allows doctors in states like Florida and New York to charge many times more for simple procedures than doctors in Idaho. According to a recent report by the non-partisan Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the recently passed health care bill would actually increase spendings by hundreds of billions of dollars over the next 10 years. Enacting a bill without meaningful cost controls would undermine the goals you and I share.
Although the bill I voted against passed the House, a new bill has been passed by the Senate. There are significant differences, and, in some cases, improvements. Rest assured that my final vote on the bill will continue to be based upon the three principles I outlined above, and my commitment to do what’s best for the First Congressional District of Idaho.
Please feel free to visit my website at http://minnick.house.gov for continued updates on my work, and do not hesitate to contact my office if I can be of assistance in the future. It is an honor to serve you in the U.S. Congress.”
Translation: I’m going to repeat Republican talking points that have long been debunked on the assumption that you’re an uneducated idiot who doesn’t have access to the Internet. I think you can probably count out Minnick’s vote for passing the Senate bill in the House.
My response to my Congressman will come at a microphone at the next party convention here in Idaho.
The Moar You Know
@jibeaux: Someone needs to take madmatt out back and shoot him in the head.
Elise
nyceve wants to kill the bill…that’s why she wants you to wait.
Everyone should be calling every day.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Michael:
It’s Always About Jane, so yes.
Serenity Now
I’m sorry, I no longer trust anything that the main posters on health care at Daily Kos have to say about health care.
cminus
Those of you in PA, MD, NoVA, OH, DC and NJ might have to wait until Friday or next week.
If those of us in DC get a voting member of Congress by next week, I guarantee you 500,000 people dancing in the streets.
cleek
mm k. called David Price (NC-4).
Sarah in Brooklyn
i left a message with a person for gillibrand. shumer’s office isn’t answering, and i can’t get through to my rep – i’ll try her NY office.
jenniebee
I kinda want to do this from the Mall. It’d really be something to have a cell-phone protest, a thousand or more people all on the mall in front of Congress, all of them on their cell phones, all calling in and jamming the switchboards. It’s got a visual appeal.
I have the 25th off, may go up there myself and make it a Cell Phone Protest of one.
Rdalin
I spoke with someone from Rep. Kurt Schrader’s office in oregon, so far unable to reach my senators here. The person I spoke with said it’s been pretty quiet on the health care front, and they haven’t been hearing a lot of stuff from constituents on either side of the fence.
4jkb4ia
@The Moar You Know:
According to a Kos comment that I can’t link to anymore, nyceve and slinkerwink quit FDL’s employ after the Norquist letter.
Cedwyn
@4jkb4ia:
they didn’t quit. per slink, jane terminated the jobs by email.