truepenny: artist's rendering of Sidneyia inexpectans (Default)
Dear Senator Johnson:

Well, here I am, writing to you again. I don't suppose either one of us is surprised.

I am writing to express my contempt for the underhanded, bad-faith tactics used by the Republican Party to pass H.R. 1. Given how much breath and ink Republican politicians have wasted complaining about how the Democrats "shoved through" the ACA, it takes a particularly special kind of hypocrisy to demonstrate so blatantly to the American people what "shoving through" a bill actually looks like.

I am also writing to observe that you have made the same maneuver at least twice this year, expressing "opposition" to the GOP's unpopular legislation and then voting the party line as if you'd never opened your mouth. Senator, just once, I'd like to see you put your vote where your mouth is and put the needs of your constituency before the interests of your party.

Because if you've somehow deluded yourself into thinking this bill will be good for your constituents, please wake up and look around. It will be a disaster for everyone except the financially topmost fraction of the American people--and those people, of all the citizens of the United States, are the ones who do not need the government to be doing them favors.

I know that I'm not going to change your mind. You've demonstrated too clearly where your allegiances lie, no matter what kind of posturing you indulge in. I am, however, asking you to change your vote. The tax cuts for corporations and billionaires proposed by this legislation will create a vast deficit where one currently does not exist. I don't quite understand how this squares with Republican claims to be the party of fiscal responsibility, but I suppose that comes in the next part, where the bill imposes disastrous cuts on Medicare, Social Security, and other vital social programs. Moreover, the repeal of the ACA individual mandate will completely destabilize the health insurance market, uninsuring millions of people, spiking premiums for those who retain coverage, and removing protections for those with pre-existing conditions. I know you don't care about that--you've made your position on that subject clear--but as a person who has "pre-existing conditions," I care very much. And then there's the SALT deduction, which will hurt the same middle-income American families Republicans have been claiming this bill will help.

Honestly, this bill, like many Republican bills this year, is cruel. It's mean-spirited, petty, unethical, and seems to be motivated by nothing but greed. With all that being said, Senator, I would suggest you think very carefully about what your vote says about you.
***
I used 5calls.org's script as a template. If you want to use my letter as a template, you are welcome to do so.
truepenny: artist's rendering of Sidneyia inexpectans (Default)
Dear Senator Johnson:

You have been saying terrible things about people with "pre-existing" conditions for all of 2017, comparing us to cars, saying that we should pay more for our healthcare, even though most "pre-existing" conditions are not caused by anything a person does or by bad choices they make. In fact, since pregnancy is a "pre-existing condition," you are actively punishing people for having families--which seems to run counter to the agenda the Republican Party has been pushing for years The Graham-Cassidy-Heller-Johnson proposal, which callously strips all protections from people like me (and which makes it entirely possible that a premature baby will hit his or her lifetime cap before leaving the hospital for the first time), makes it clear that in fact you have no idea of what it's like not to be able to afford healthcare, or to have a chronic, incurable condition, and that you don't even have enough imagination to be able to empathize with the people whose lives you are destroying.

Moreover, given that there is astonishing unity among healthcare professionals, patients' interest groups, and major insurers (plus all fifty Medicaid administrators and a current count of eighteen governors), it is quite clear that you aren't doing this because it's a good idea. You don't care whether it will be good or bad for your constituents. All you care about--and more than one of your Republican colleagues have admitted as much--is repealing "Obamacare." You're doing this because you made a campaign promise, and you're too blindly self-centered to see that this is a promise that would be better honored in the breach than in the observance. You and your colleagues are behaving childishly, destroying something only because you hate the person who built it. The ACA is not failing, as you keep claiming it is, Senator. It is suffering mightily from obstructionism and deliberate sabotage from you and your colleagues, and, yes, it does need reform. But your proposal isn't reform. It's wanton demolition of legislation that is working, legislation that is succeeding in making the lives of Americans better, demolition which you are pushing without the slightest consideration of its effects on the people you claim you serve.

I'm not writing this letter because I expect you will change your mind--or, frankly, even read it. I'm writing this letter because I'm angry and scared and unbelievably frustrated with your deliberately cruel and blindly stupid determination to do something that no one in this country wants. You won't change your mind, but you can't say you didn't know there was opposition.

P.S. I'd still really like to see you denounce white supremacism, Senator. Because right now, I unwillingly believe you don't think there's anything wrong with it.

***

Dear Ms. DeVos:

I am appalled at your decision to roll back the protections given to sexual assault survivors by Title IX. I'm not surprised, because it's perfectly in line with the other cruel, short-sighted, and bigoted decisions you've made since being appointed Secretary of Education, but I honestly wonder (and I wonder this about a number of Trump appointees, so you needn't think you're alone) how you live with yourself. How do you justify, even if only to yourself, the damage you're doing? Do you believe the lies you tell?

I'm not going to quote statistics, because I'm sure they've been shown to you. I'm not going to try to change your mind with personal stories. I am going to ask, futilely, that you stop and truly think about the young women whose college careers, already catastrophically imperiled by the sexual assault they have survived, may be destroyed because of the policies you're implementing. And I'm going to ask how on earth you think this destruction is part of your mandate as Secretary of Education?

Everyone's civil rights need to be respected. I believe this strongly enough to belong to the ACLU. But victims' rights are historically ignored, trampled on, and outright broken, especially in cases of sexual assault, especially when the perpetrator is white and male. I also strongly believe that the purpose of government should be to ensure that privilege is not used to skew justice. It was already crushingly difficult for sexual assault survivors to report their assailants. You have made it that much harder, and that much more likely that they will simply remain silent. I cannot help thinking that that silence is your goal, and that, Ms. DeVos, is truly shameful.
truepenny: artist's rendering of Sidneyia inexpectans (Default)
Dear Senator Johnson:

I have been reading about the Graham-Cassidy ACA repeal bill, and the more I read, the more horrified I am. The premium hikes it allows for "pre-existing conditions" are unconscionable, and if you don't think Wisconsin will exploit those hikes, you have no understanding of your state's governor. Moreover, it's estimated that 32 million people will lose coverage within 10 years. Remember when you were arguing that 16 million was "better" than 22 million? Because I remember that very clearly.

Senator, this bill is a DISASTER. I am forced to choose between believing that you did not read or understand the bill that you have co-sponsored and believing that you understand it perfectly and just care that little about the well-being of your constituents and the rest of the American people.

Your party's obsession with repealing the ACA has been wasting time, energy, money, and other resources since the beginning of 2017--not to mention the resources and opportunities wasted by your party's childish obstructionism throughout the Obama administration, in which you are fully implicated. Repealing the ACA is fantastically unpopular and has failed repeatedly. And, honestly, the worst thing that could happen to the Republican Party is for this repeal bill to succeed. If it weren't for the catastrophe that would be brought down upon millions of people, I would almost want to let you have this monkey's paw. By all means, Senator. GET WHAT YOU WISH FOR.

However, I would much prefer it if you would join those of your colleagues who are trying to REFORM the ACA, even if you won't go so far as endorsing Medicare for all. In fact, I thought you HAD joined them, since you were participating in hearings about healthcare reform, and I am bitterly disappointed in you (yet again) by your co-sponsorship of the Graham-Cassidy bill.

I know nothing I say will change your mind, and certainly nothing I say will convince you to vote against your own bill. But I cannot remain silent and allow my silence to be counted as consent for this abhorrent, inhumane, and unethical bill. You cannot say you did not know that there was vehement opposition to the Graham-Cassidy bill among your own constituents, to whom, in theory, you are supposed to listen and whose interests, in theory, you are supposed to represent.

I am frankly ashamed to have you as my senator.

Sincerely,
Sarah Monette
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Dear Senator Johnson:

Today you unveiled your proposed health care legislation. I am not impressed by it, especially in comparison to the health care legislation of Senator Sanders and Senator Baldwin. I know I cannot change your mind, or convince you that removing federal regulations is a catastrophe, not a solution, or that block grants to states, while perhaps a workable solution in some states, will be misused in every way possible in others to ensure that the money does not go where it is most needed. I count Wisconsin as one of those states. I do not believe the state government has its citizens' best interests at heart any more than I believe you do.

Republican senators have been trying and failing to repeal the ACA for all of 2017, despite intense opposition from their constituencies, while Senator Sanders' Medicare for All plan creates the reform you claim to want. You are wasting time, energy, money, and other resources that would be better spent on almost anything else--perhaps the opioid crisis you also claim to be concerned about.

I am disappointed and angry. You have betrayed your constituents again, Senator. And although this is just one more chapter in a book you are making longer by the day, I am still appalled by the stupidity and cruelty you continue to endorse. Even though Wisconsin is not my native state, I have lived and voted here for more than twenty years. I am ashamed that one of my senators has put his name on this bill.


P.S. You still have not made a public statement denouncing fascism, either.
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Dear Senator Johnson:

I am writing to ask you to persuade your Republican colleagues to abandon efforts to repeal the ACA. While I whole-heartedly believe that the American healthcare system needs to be reformed, repealing the ACA is not the way to begin. The ACA is not failing, is not in a death spiral, and would in fact be more and more successful if President Trump and Republican legislators would stop sabotaging it.

I am writing to ask you to reach out to your Democratic colleagues. I am writing to ask you to work on a reform process for the ACA that is built on bipartisan cooperation and includes committee work, public hearings, and the full, correct parliamentary procedure for Senate legislation.

There are so many other issues I am angry and/or frightened about, like President Trump's ban on transgender service people, the utter disgrace Jeff Sessions is making of the office of Attorney General, and this new and horrible attack on the rights of people in nursing homes, but I feel defeated by my prior knowledge that you are not interested in my concerns. I am writing anyway because it is something I can do in defense of my ideals and my country, unlike all the many things I can't.
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Dear Senator Johnson:

Thank you for speaking out against Senator McConnell's methodology, which looks suspiciously more like tyranny than democracy. I hope that you will publicly refuse to vote to repeal the ACA with nothing lined up to take its place. McConnell's plan is catastrophic and could only be put forward by someone who neither knows nor cares anything about the healthcare needs of his constituents. I am strongly in favor of bipartisan reform for the ACA, and I hope that you will reach out to your Democratic colleagues to make that happen.

I know I will never persuade you that you are wrong about the effect of the free market, but, because I choose to believe that you are acting in good faith, I have to--in good faith--try again:

The problem with the free market is that it erodes ethics. Free-market capitalism says that ethics are irrelevant--if they're not actually a liability, making you less able to compete. This is why it is crucial that the government regulate corporations. The government doesn't need to worry about corporations making money. They'll take care of that part themselves. The government needs to ensure that they don't run roughshod over employees and consumers in the process. Deregulating everything and trusting to the free market to solve the problem is like opening all the cages and trusting the tigers to solve the food supply problem. Corporations, like tigers, will solve the problem for themselves. We need the government to make sure the problem is solved for everyone.

This is why we need government. This is why government should never be run on the corporate model. It is not a corporation, and if it is to succeed in providing justice for all citizens, it cannot be a corporation. It has to be the balance to the corporations, to keep their untrammeled free market competition from literally poisoning everything they touch. In the past fifty years, America has proved repeatedly that deregulation is not the answer. Deregulation only and always makes things worse, because--hey, wait for it--our country is not a corporation. Treating it like one merely destroys it.

This is why ethics are not something that can be discarded. Because without ethics, you get the Trump administration, and I have to tell you that, no matter how it looks from where you are, from where I am, all I see are tigers.



There's also email to Governor Walker about why isn't he one of the governors speaking out against ACA repeal?
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Dear Senator Johnson:

For most of this week, I've been too angry to write a letter. I'm angry at Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan and Steve Daines and all the rest of the smug Republican apparatchiks who think scoring points against Barack Obama is more important than the lives of tens of millions (if not hundreds of millions) of their constituents. I'm angry at the way the GOP is trying to bully the Congressional Budget Office into giving their healthcare bill a better score. And I'm afraid, Senator Johnson, that means that I'm angry at you.

Your weaseling around to try to make the CBO score "better" infuriates me. First because you're trying to change the rules of the game (to use Senator Daines' extremely unfortunate metaphor) so that you can reach the goalposts your party has moved with your actions this year. Second because, while l6 million people uninsured may be fewer than 22 million people uninsured, it is not BETTER.

I wish I thought I had any hope of making you understand that.

It appalls me that you have any say in the governing of our country. (You're not alone in that. I'm equally appalled that Paul Ryan has any say in the governing of our country. Not to mention Donald J. Trump.) It makes me cringe to think that when I say, "I live in Wisconsin," people will now immediately associate that with the guy who argued that 16 million people uninsured was a meaningful improvement over 22 million people uninsured. And it infuriates me that you, my elected representative to the United States Senate, demonstrably and out of your own mouth care not a single iota about my welfare, or the welfare of 99% of your other constituents.

We both know you won't read this letter. Honestly, that is the least of my disappointments in you.
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Senate Republicans have sent the BCRA back to the CBO.

1. To Senator Ron Johnson:

Dear Senator Johnson:

You and I disagree fundamentally on what's wrong with the BCRA. This is only to be expected, given your belief in the power of the private sector, whereas my experience of being an American citizen for the past 42 years is that privatization and deregulation ALWAYS MAKES THINGS WORSE. *ALWAYS.* And your horrifying analogy between health insurance and car insurance gives me no confidence that you will ever understand my point of view.

However, I appreciate that you disagree with the BCRA, and I appreciate that you are willing to say so publicly. Please, even if we disagree on why it's wrong, continue to oppose the BCRA. The democratic process and democratic government only work with public and honest debate, NONE OF WHICH THE BCRA HAS HAD. Please vote against it. Please insist on public hearings.

Thank you.

2. To Senator Tammy Baldwin:

Dear Senator Baldwin:

Thank you for your opposition to the BCRA. This bill *TERRIFIES* me, both on my own behalf and on the behalf of my family and beloved friends. The BCRA threatens my ability to afford the health care I need to manage a number of "pre-existing conditions," including major depressive disorder, restless legs syndrome, and chronic migraines. Without management, these conditions will destroy my ability to be productive, and they will make my life a daily misery. I promise I am not exaggerating. My friends who are self-employed artists, who were only able to pursue their dreams because of the ACA, are now facing the loss of the health insurance (i.e., the access to affordable and sufficient care) they, too, desperately need.

Please continue to speak out against this cruel bill. Please continue to fight it.

Thank you.
truepenny: artist's rendering of Sidneyia inexpectans (Default)
Dear Senator Johnson:

Yesterday, you compared me, not favorably, to a car: "We’ve done something with our health care system that you would never think about doing, for example, with auto insurance, where you would require auto insurance companies to sell a policy to somebody after they crash their car."

I cannot tell you how furious I am.

First of all, in comparing health insurance to car insurance, you are implying that:

(1) we can avoid illness, cancer, strokes, etc., the same way a driver, hypothetically, can avoid accidents (although accidents can't always be avoided, either);
(2) human beings are nothing but machines;
3) if we are not useful--as, say, children or elderly people no longer able to work are not useful--we are not worth taking care of;
(4) we decrease in value when we are damaged.

All of these implications are wrong. Frankly, they are all reprehensible. Also, a car accident is in no way, shape, or form like a "pre-existing condition." "Pre-existing conditions" are chronic. You can't deal with them once and then move on, the way you can buy a new car if yours is totaled. You have to deal with a "pre-existing condition" for the rest of your life; it goes on being expensive, eating up energy, and making your daily life harder long after the crisis point (the accident, in your analogy), if there even was one. Many people's "pre-existing conditions" start before they're even born. It is a false and pernicious analogy which you should never have permitted yourself to make.

Moreover, my "pre-existing conditions" are not things that I did, or things caused by my bad choices. The same is true of my friends who are bipolar. The same is true of any child who has cancer. Illness, whether mental or physical, is not a moral judgment, and a person's value, which is inestimable, is neither measured nor affected by the health care they need. And no one can predict the health care they're going to need--in much the same way no one can predict a drunk driver crossing the median and colliding head-on with their car.

Frankly, I have never expected you to oppose TrumpCare, whether it's called the AHCA or the BCRA, and I was angry enough about that. But the contempt this analogy shows for your constituents and for their need to have effective and affordable health care--a need that does not correlate with either their socio-economic status or their moral rectitude and that should never be thought of in terms of free-market capitalism--is appalling, especially from someone who claims to consider it "an honor and a privilege to serve the people of Wisconsin." I sincerely hope that this analogy is not a reflection of your true opinion of your constituents.

Senator Johnson, I AM NOT A CAR. I am a person, created equal with yourself, and I deserve to have my elected representatives respect my humanity and treat me with dignity.
truepenny: artist's rendering of Sidneyia inexpectans (Default)
(I said this on Twitter, I might as well say it here.)

So, yesterday I outed myself as mentally ill. Which was a conscious choice & one I'm not fully happy about, but it needed to be done. It also means that I have admitted I have a disability. (Actually, I have several.) Which I'm also not happy about, but facts are facts.

However, I'm now waiting for the person who's going to come along and tell me I'm not disabled enough:
  • "You don't look/act disabled." (You're not really disabled, just making excuses/trying to make yourself look special.)
  • "You're not on disability." (You fail to meet a arbitrary, quantifiable standard of disability, therefore you are not disabled.)
  • "I don't think you have a real disability." (You fail to meet my arbitrary, unquantifiable standard of disability, therefore you are not disabled.)
  • "You have a job." (You can't really be disabled. You're too functional.)
  • "Your description of your disability does not match with other people's descriptions of their disability/with my experience of my disability." (You're not disabled, you're just lying.)
  • "Other people have disabilities that are much worse than yours." (How dare you claim to be disabled.)
  • ETA 2017 06 25 "You can totally overcome this disability if you think right/eat right/exercise right/pray right/take the right supplements/buy the right Lucky Special Stick." (You're not really disabled, you're just not trying.) [I forgot this one, as I said to rachelmanija when she reminded me of it, because it's the one I still say to myself.]

Well, if that's how you think, I have news for you:

1. FUCK YOU.

2. Disability is not a competition. Yes, there ARE people whose disabilities are much worse than mine. That doesn't make the issues I struggle with less real.

3. You have no idea of how hard I may be working to not "look disabled."

4. Also, and I repeat, fuck you and the horse you rode in on. Whoever you are and whatever your credentials, you do not get to constitute yourself the disability police and tell me, once again, that I'm not disabled enough to count.

I don't want to be disabled. (Jesus fucking Christ, who would?) I don't want to acknowledge that I'm disabled. I'm doing so now because the Republicans are trying to make people with disabilities disappear, and it's time to BE VISIBLE as a person with disabilities who doesn't "look disabled," instead of just passing for "normal" as best I can.

So stop telling me to shut up because I don't meet your standards.

I have disabilities. They're real. By the definition of the health care that I'm in danger of losing, HELL YEAH are they real. I *do* have a dog in this fight, and me and him, we're gonna go down YELLING OUR FUCKING HEADS OFF.
truepenny: artist's rendering of Sidneyia inexpectans (Default)
ETA: Per Snopes, the Warm Springs Foundation, which provided Senator McConnell with polio rehabilitation, was a nonprofit organization with extremely close ties to the federal government (as we'd probably phrase it today). If someone from Senator Johnson's office contacts me to point out my errors, at least I'll know they read my letter.

ETA(2): ALSO THIS.


[via email]

Dear Senator Johnson:

First of all, thank you for speaking out against the speed with which Senator McConnell is trying to force his Better Care Reconciliation Act through the Senate.

Secondly-- As it turns out, Senator McConnell had polio as a small child; his health care was entirely government-funded. This is exactly the kind of health care--the kind that provides needed services to children whose parents *are*not*wealthy*--that he is trying to destroy. The hypocrisy of this infuriates me, above and beyond all the other things that I think are appalling, shameful, and horrifying about the BCRA.

The BCRA is potentially catastrophic for me. I have a number of chronic conditions, including Major Depressive Disorder, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, and Restless Legs Syndrome, that are controlled, entirely or in part, by medications--medications that I cannot afford without health insurance. Without the chemical assistance to straighten out my brain chemistry and neurology, I will very quickly become paralyzed by the apathy of depression and the brain-lock induced by OCD--not to mention the chronic sleep-deprivation caused by RLS. And these conditions are all incurable. They can be *managed* very successfully, but I will never be free of them. I need these medications for the rest of my life. (I'm 42. I'm hoping "the rest of my life" is a very long time.)

Right now, I have insurance through the State of Wisconsin. But--as you are possibly aware--the state has been steadily chipping away at its employees' health benefits for the last 20 years, and if the BCRA passes, it gives Wisconsin greatly increased leeway to make state employees' health benefits ever more meager, which will mean my out-of-pocket costs for prescriptions and doctor visits will continue to increase and increase, while my insurance covers less and less of the care I need. (The medication which principally controls my RLS already has a co-pay of more than $100 a month.) And if I *lose* that coverage, I will be uninsurable. I am a walking compendium of "pre-existing conditions"--I didn't even tell you about the chronic migraines or the fibromyalgia or the Obstructive Sleep Apnea.

Senator, I need health insurance. I need it to be affordable. I need it NOT to be contingent on my never having been and never becoming sick, because that door slammed shut a long time ago. I need it to PROTECT ME, not benefit the health insurance companies and pharmaceutical manufacturers.

I am hoping that, as my senator, you care more about my well-being than you do about providing tax cuts to a handful of people who do not need them. I am hoping that you recognize Senator McConnell's rank hypocrisy and that it angers you as it does me. I am hoping that you will defend me and your other 5.77 million constituents who need, as a matter of quite literally life or death, the access to affordable healthcare that Senator McConnell and his BCRA are trying to strip away from us.

Please continue to oppose the BCRA. Do not let this unconscionable bill be your legacy.
truepenny: artist's rendering of Sidneyia inexpectans (Default)
Dear Senator Johnson:

I'm writing to ask you to put pressure on Senator McConnell to release the text of the AHCA bill and to hold public hearings before the bill is put to the vote. I ask this in a nonpartisan spirit, simply as a principle of ethical governance. Patrick Henry said in 1788, "The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them. . . . to cover with the veil of secrecy the common routine of business, is an abomination in the eyes of every intelligent man, and every friend to his country." I believe that's as true now as it was then.

Please don't let Senator McConnell set a precedent with the AHCA. Insist that the text of the bill be published. Insist that there be public hearings. We fall short of the ideal of American democracy a lot of the time, but we are better than this crude and childish attempt to strong-arm an unpopular bill through the Senate by refusing to let anyone see it.

It would only take three Republican senators refusing to vote for the AHCA without proper disclosure and hearings to make it impossible for Senator McConnell's strategy to succeed. I would like to believe, not only that there are three Republican senators who have the ethical and moral strength to make that refusal, but also that the senior senator from Wisconsin is one of them.
truepenny: artist's rendering of Sidneyia inexpectans (Default)
Dear Senator Johnson:

I try very hard not to think that you are a bad man.

I try to believe that you act on principles that you hold as deeply and fervently as I hold mine. I try to believe that you have the best interests of your constituents always at the forefront of your mind, and that even if you and I don't agree on what those best interests entail, you are doing the best that you can possibly do to serve the people of Wisconsin.

Senator Johnson, sometimes you make this very hard to believe.

In particular, your recent support of President Trump's decision to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord, your continuing attempts to dismantle the ACA, and your complete failure to demand that the Senate hold public hearings about their AHCA bill all make me think that, in fact, you are no different than your fellow Republican power holders, interested only in profit and power, motivated only by selfishness and bigotry.

If you truly believe that the AHCA will "rescue the American people from the disaster of Obamacare," as Vice President Pence puts it, then there is no reason to rush it to a vote. There is no reason why there can't be public hearings, or why the Senate can't wait for the CBO score. There is no reason for all the urgency and secrecy and backroom deals--unless, in fact, neither you nor your fellow Republican senators actually believe that the AHCA is in the best interests of the American people.

I know, really, that there's nothing I can say that will change your mind about the Affordable Care Act. But please show me that you have the courage of your convictions. Show me that even if we don't agree, I can respect you as a principled man. Insist publicly and loudly that the Senate hold public hearings on the AHCA. If the AHCA is in the best interests of the American people, then you have nothing to fear from public hearings. If it isn't . . . if it isn't, why aren't you fighting it tooth and nail?



N.b. (1) I will also be calling Senator Johnson and Senator Baldwin's offices. ETA: I have called Senator Johnson and Senator Baldwin's offices. Got real people both places. Again, props to Sen. Johnson's staffers for being polite and friendly and sounding sincerely interested in my opinion, despite us all knowing that Sen. Johnson does not give a damn what I think.
(2) Again, anyone wanting to use this or any of my other letters as templates is welcome to do so.
truepenny: artist's rendering of Sidneyia inexpectans (Default)
(1) Congressman Mark Pocan
Dear Mr. Pocan:

Thank you for voting against the American Health Care Act yesterday. Thank you for speaking out so frankly against it in your press release. When so much of our current government seems either indifferent or actually hostile to the welfare of the citizens of the United States, I am grateful to have a representative who continues to put his constituents' needs first. Thank you for not betraying your voters.

(2) Senator Tammy Baldwin
Dear Senator Baldwin:

Yesterday, the Republicans in the House of Representatives, after carefully exempting themselves from the consequences, voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act. When the bill comes before the Senate, I know that you will vote against it. Thank you for being someone your constituents can rely on to protect them.

(3) Senator Ron Johnson
Dear Senator Johnson:

Yesterday, the Republicans in the House of Representatives, after carefully exempting themselves from the consequences, voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act. I know your voting record; I know how you feel about the Affordable Care Act. But I am asking you, please, to reconsider your stance. The American Health Care Act is a debacle that will harm--quite possibly kill--millions of Americans. If you support Americans' right to bear arms, how can you not support their right to adequate affordable health care?

I am one of your constituents, and I will be harmed by the repeal of the Affordable Care Act. When the American Health Care Act comes before the Senate, please vote against it.
truepenny: artist's rendering of Sidneyia inexpectans (Default)
So Cicero had this rhetorical trick of which he was very fond, called praeteritio, which goes like this: "Today, I'm not going to talk about how Cataline fornicates with underage sheep. If I were, I would tell you that he he takes pictures and posts them on the internet as sh33pfck3r999. But since I'm not talking about his unnatural relations with sheep, I'm going to tell you about the filthy filthy things he does with pigs, instead." (My apologies to both pigs and sheep for being included in this hypothetical example.)

Therefore, I'm not going to talk about how the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) benefits me or how much I need the health care I have now or how that horrible list of "pre-existing conditions" set by the American Health Care Act (Trumpcare) paints a target on me at least eleven times (no, you did not read that number wrong). No, I'm not going to talk about any of that. Instead, I'm going to talk about my friend Caitlin.

Caitlin in the daughter of Lynne and Michael Thomas. She has Aicardi Syndrome, which is a rare genetic disorder that affects the development of the brain. As one would expect from such a thing, it causes a horrific array of problems. Obamacare made it possible for Caitlin to get the medical treatment and support she needs.

Trumpcare wants to make her, and children like her, disappear.

Trump makes Godwin's Law so easy it feels trivial even to mention it, but I must point out that the Third Reich also wanted to make children with disabilities disappear, and it was pretty good at it, too.

On the other side, Gandhi, who was no fool, remarked, "A nation's greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members." And Hubert H. Humphrey said in his final speech, "the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; those who are in the shadows of life; the sick, the needy and the handicapped." By that test, the administration of the 45th President of the United States and the 115th United States Congress are failing miserably, and the United States is in grave jeopardy of ceasing to be at all, by any definition, a great nation.

Abraham Lincoln, who's been on my mind a lot recently (and who would be ashamed and horrified at what the Republican Party has come to), defined the government of the United States of America as "government of the people, by the people, for the people," and if that's at all true, if ours is a government for the people as much as a government of the people, then our government owes it to its citizens to make sure that they have adequate health care, that they don't go bankrupt to get the health care they need, and that no one dies because they cannot afford--or are afraid they cannot afford--to see a doctor. (There are a number of other things I think our government owes its citizens, but that's a tangent for another time.) This is not an abstract issue for me. I have dearly beloved friends who could not get the health care they needed because they couldn't get insurance--because writers are, hey, self-employed and therefore, pre-ACA, out in the cold. And it is not an abstract issue for me because I know Caitlin and I know how much she needs medical care that her parents, who work their asses off, could not afford without the ACA.

I've been having anxiety attacks on and off since the evening of November 8, 2016, as I watch Trump and his administration and the 115th Congress rampage through our nation's government like gleeful trolls, destroying everything they can get their hands on simply because they can. This, the third attempt to repeal the ACA, is for me proof that we are being governed by people who are themselves only governed by spite, hatred, fear, and greed.

I have joined the ACLU; I have written--and will continue to write--to my elected representatives, even though two are Democrats and the other is Senator Ron Johnson who does not give a fuck what I think.

And I'm making this post because I have to try to make my voice heard, even if no one is listening. The ACA is something of tremendous value, something our nation should be proud of, not something to tear down because of petty party politics. It makes the lives of millions of Americans easier and less fearful and how the Republican congressmen and -women who are voting for its repeal can even look each other in the face, or even look at themselves in the mirror, is something I will never understand.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that if society rewards sociopathic behavior, people will behave like sociopaths. If you need an example to prove it, look at the 115th Congress and the textbook demonstrations of sociopathy they've been giving this week. (Jason Chaffetz, I am looking at you. But not only at you.) The people voting to repeal the ACA do not care about their constituents; they do not care about good government; they don't even care about the ideals they claim their party upholds. They care only about themselves and their bottom line. And if Obamacare is "collapsing," you assholes, it's because you have done nothing for the past seven years but sabotage and stonewall and do everything in your power to keep it from working.

Please, gentle reader, resist. Whatever you can do, even if it doesn't feel like enough, even if you don't think your opinion can possibly matter. Because if we each put a pebble down, maybe we can build a wall Trump won't like. And maybe we can keep the current administration and current Congress from eviscerating everything that lets America verge on greatness.

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