Open Letter To Senate Leader Harry Reid
Dear Senator Reid,
I am writing to you concerning the current debate over healthcare reform. I know you have long been a proponent of reform to our healthcare system, but I am going to ask you for something extra. If we fail this year to get a bill passed that includes a solid public option that can keep the insurance companies honest in their prices and their practices, we may never get it.
From what I have seen of you, you seem like a straightforward person, somewhat soft-spoken, not prone to hyperbole or exaggeration. These are traits to be admired and emulated.
At this time, however, I am asking you to pull out all the stops. Please use all your powers as Senate leader to help get a good bill passed. Take a page from DeLay’s book and knock some heads, twist some arms, threaten, cajole, hold staged press-conferences, work the media, distribute talking points, whatever it takes.
Yes, the Republican tactics are deplorable at times, and I know it would gall you to sink to their level, and I would not ask you to do this, except…
If we don’t pass meaningful healthcare reform people will die, people will suffer, people will lose their homes and their children’s inheritances, diseases and conditions will go untreated, and we will still be overpaying for a broken system.
Here is something I heard coming from the right (I can’t recall the exact source), maybe you can use it. This right-wing nut-job was going off on a tirade about how America has the best healthcare system in the world, and the proof was that foreign presidents, prime-ministers, kings, sultans, business tycoons, etc. all came to America when they needed advanced forms of treatment. I thought to myself – this is true, I have heard of rich and powerful people coming here to take advantage of our most advanced technology and expertise. What he didn’t say was that if you are NOT one of these rich and powerful foreigners, you may not get anywhere near the level of treatment that is available to them. Is this why generations of Americans have struggled and sweated and bled to make our country the greatest on Earth, so that only foreigners could take advantage of the progress we have made through the years, due in large part to research done by our publicly funded universities, our research grants, our public hospitals?
Please take this fight to the next level and win this for us.
Thank You,
Peter A. Gaeta