Well, I
wrote my senator, and received a response. Yes, it was a form letter. Here is my letter first:
Dear Senator Feinstein,
I am writing to tell you that I expect you to vote for health care reform, INCLUDING a public option, just like our Democratic President promised during his campaign.
I came to your website to send you this note and was amazed that I did not see a giant section on your homepage about health care reform. Is that because you have taken nearly half a million dollars ($369,490 to be exact) from the industry?
Look, I am an Independent who left the Democratic party because of a lack of principle shown me by my Democratic representatives; you included. Your refusal to fight for a public option, with every fiber of your elected being, means you don't deserve to be my Senator anymore.
Get on board with the public option, fight hard to get it passed, neuter any filibuster, and maybe, just maybe, you can help insure a few million people. Oh, and get re-elected, because clearly that is your reason for being.
And lastly, why make folks opt-out of your newsletter by UN-checking the box directly under this form? Why not allow them to opt-in? Signing us up for your newsletter, surreptitiously, as the default is slippery, slimy, and rather illustrative of your desire to remain in power and not help your constituents, all the while trying to operate under our radar.
Public option. Support the party that elected you, and our President!
Here is her response:
Thank you for contacting me to express your support for the inclusion of a public health care option in health care reform legislation. I am committed to enacting meaningful reform to expand access to the health care system.
I am delighted that you support healthcare reform, as do I. The key is to find a healthcare plan that provides coverage, as well as limits costs. My colleagues in the Senate and I have been working on this, but it is a difficult issue and must be carefully thought out. I hope that the Senate Finance Committee will propose a bill which will lay out a way in which we can accomplish these goals and can be effectively merged with the bill passed by the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
Other health reforms are also necessary. I strongly believe that any healthcare reform legislation should prohibit coverage denial based on preexisting conditions. Reducing healthcare costs is absolutely essential. Between 2000 and 2007, combined profits for 10 of the country's largest publically traded insurance companies rose 428 percent. I believe that a way to control those costs is by instituting a public option, a nonprofit cooperative model, or a regulatory authority to achieve this. I am also concerned about the astronomical growth of entitlement spending, which makes up 56 percent of all federal dollars spent in 2009. Health reform must bend the healthcare cost curve, slowing the growth of entitlements in order to reduce our nation's debt and budget deficit.
Any Senate health reform bill must improve California's complex health care system, and please know that I am working hard with my colleagues to make health care affordable for all Americans, without adding to the federal deficit.
Again, thank you for writing. If you have any further questions or comments, please do not hesitate to contact my Washington, D.C. office at (202) 224-3841. Best regards.
Sincerely yours,
Dianne Feinstein
United States Senator
And my response to her response:
Oh well. I give up.
The co-op idea is useless. And the tone of your form letter is rather presumptuous; the delight you take in our shared desire to reform healthcare is not really shared, as our visions of reform are pretty much opposed. Taking delight in opposition--that you think is cooperation!--to a constituent makes you seem rather, I don't know, condescending, presumptuous, unsympathetic, and out of touch.
Why am I even responding to your form letter, a response to a letter of mine you never read? Because, it is all you have given me, and it is not enough. Just like your stance on healthcare. Right up your alley!
Democrats elected Obama and the congressional Democratic majority (which includes you, Senator) to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, to prosecute torturers, and to give America Universal healthcare.
Any other healthcare option is useless.
You have proven your ineffectiveness.
I will not vote for you again.
And I am not sorry!
Thanks for nothing,
--TFT