"You lie!"

Dear MoveOn member,

Last night, President Obama challenged Congress to "meet history's test" and finally fix our broken health care system. He pledged to seek common ground between Democrats and Republicans, and assured them all: "My door is always open."

Republicans responded by heckling, booing, and hissing. Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) screamed out "You lie!" as the President defended his health care plan against false right-wing attacks.

We can't afford to let right-wing extremists like Joe Wilson hold health care reform hostage. As Obama put it, "the time for games has passed. Now is the season for action."

My MoveOn We're Not a Democracy Response:

Sure, MoveOn, I'll go along with your little scheme. You may not like my letter, though. Here goes:

Dear CONgress,

I've been instructed by the people at MoveOn that I'm supposed to tell you that we aren't to let the right-wing extremists shut down helath care reform. So I'm doing that, but I have a caveat: don't let left-wing extremists define what "reform" is.

I'm sure you didn't read the bill. I don't blame you. HR3200 is over a thousand pages long. It's written in legaleze. It takes a law degree and a team of legal experts to decipher and even then you'll only get half of it.

I can tell you this, though... there is no "reform" in that bill. Just more garbage, but on such a scale that it will make the Homeland Security Act, the USA PATRIOT Act and the Cash For Clunkers program look downright simplistic.

So I urge you to ignore both extremists wings (right AND left) and stick to your guns about ignoring the health care issue altogether until someone brings up something that matches the dictionary definition of "reform."

Here's that definition, so you don't have to look it up:
re⋅form
  /rɪˈfɔrm/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [ri-fawrm] Show IPA
–noun
1. the improvement or amendment of what is wrong, corrupt, unsatisfactory, etc.: social reform; spelling reform.

President Obama needs to hear from you

Dear MoveOn member,

News just broke that President Obama will give a major speech on health care before Congress on Wednesday where he'll lay out what he thinks needs to be in the health care bill.


Alright, you asked for it, MoveOnTheresNothingToSeeHereButSocialism:

Dear President Obama,

Let me start off by saying what a great public speaker you are and how nice you look on TV. Thanks for constantly invading my living room telling me about the important talking points in Washington.

Today, I want to talk to you, though, and tell you what I think about the health care issue.

I have three points I think you should consider before you go off half-cocked on the issue and try to put anything before Congress. Sort of a personal hint: whatever you do give them, make sure it's written with lots of big lawyer words and is on as many pages as you can muster, even if you have to double-space some of it. The bigger and more lawylerly it is, the less likely they are to read it. Just saying...

Anyway, my views on health care are pretty simple. I have three suggestions I think would only be fair in any public health care option:

1) Force all government employees to go onto whatever the new public option is. This include elected officials, bureaucrats, and even those already retired who're on the public retirement plan. Ya, it includes you and your family too, but I'm sure that any plan you have in the works will be good enough for all of you to abide with too. Right?

2) Lump Social Security and Medicare into the plans too. If we're going to get public health care rolling, we may as well start with the public health care options already out there and just ad to them. Right? I'm sure their budgets can handle it. They're pretty big.

3) Don't waste any time with any "grace" or "transition" periods. Once the new public option is out there, let's not waste any time forcing everyone to quickly comply. I hear those IRS agents are getting bored anyway, so may as well fill in their time until April 15 rolls around. They're already good at this stuff anyway.

Those three suggestions should either make or break health care, Mr. President, and are surely all important, fair, and should definitely be included in anything that's going to be across the board. I mean, like you've said several times now, the current system discriminates against people who don't have what others have got. Right? So why not make sure that it's all the same for everyone, across the board.

Fair is fair. Even for you, sir.