I said I'd put this up weeks ago but have been busy organizing locally. The tide on health care is turning in our favor but we must keep up the pressure to get the strongest public option we can. With that in mind I've created some pages at my local Downers Grove Township Democratic Organization website that you can use.

Start here: http://www.dgdemocrats.com/

If you'd like to fax or phone senators on Baucus's Finance Committee, Kennedy's HELP Committee or House Reps on Rangel's Ways and Means Committee click on the "Healthcare Contact Info" button.

If you'd like to download the petition we're circulating click on "Healthcare Petition". You're welcome to modify it by taking our party name & address off the bottom to substitute your own if you like or just leave it blank. A Republican at the last Downers Grove Township Board Meeting did just that by folding the bottom inch under to run off copies on the copying machine. His wife's a  nurse so he knows we need to change this system.Take 'em to your local town fair or any gatherings you attend. Ask family, friends, co-workers to sign. Stand on street corner or go door to door. I keep a stack in my car and mention it to anyone I meet. You can sign up every waitress in a restaurant and the owner too that way. I'm gonna make copies of these and hand them to Biggert (more on that below) and fax them to Baucus, Kennedy and Rangel. If you have any other committee chairs or wavering Dems you think I should send them to please leave the info in comments. If enough people do this kind of stuff we'll win this fight. Just ask President McCain what an army of volunteers can do.

There's also a lot of links to articles about polling, sleazy insurance company tactics, and the competitive disadvantage American workers and business suffer from under the "Healthcare Reform Information" button. Some of them you've probably seen, some not.  

If you live in the Chicago area Campaign for Better Health Care is organizing a meeting and rally at House Rep Judy Biggert's (IL-13) Willowbrook office at Rt 83 and 63rd St. next Monday June 29th at 4:30 pm. We want to get as many people as we can there as a show of support for a strong public option in the health care bill. We're going to have media covering it.

Biggert has also tentatively agreed to come to a townhall in a bigger hall about health care on a Saturday to be determined in July. I know 4:30 is too early for a lot of people but it's the only time she would agree to next week.

I doubt we'll sway Biggert - her daughter is pharma lobbyist - but If we get a good crowd the resulting media coverage might shut her, Mark Kirk (IL-10) and Peter Roskam (IL-06) up for awhile and inspire Bill Foster (IL-14) and Melissa Bean (IL-08) to do the right thing. We're gonna get a good House bill, but the stronger it is, the better the negotiations with the Senate will go and the final bill will be.  

Please recommend this post. There's lots of useful information at the website and now is the time to get cranking on this. Both Houses say they intend to have the bill ready by August 1st. This is make or break time.  We elected Obama so we'd have a president who'd sign this kind of legislation into law. We don't have brigades of lobbyists with tons of campaign cash on our side. What we do have is an army of volunteers who have what they raise all that campaign cash for, to get the votes of hundreds of millions people. Let's remind those Senators and House Reps it's government of the people, by the people, for the people, not the profits of special interests.