112 letters for ehalth care

I'm pretty exhausted after a long weekend. We had a board meeting for Life o' Mike Saturday, so I had a house full. Then I baked four dozen cupcakes for the letter-writing party at the church yesterday.

We had more than 40 people stop by to write letters and most of them wrote three -- one to Rep. Health Shuler, one to Sen. Kay Hagen and one to Sen. Richard Burr -- to ask them to do the right thing with health care reform.

We got 112 letters, and more are promised.

Now I want to throw more letter-writing parties!

I illustrated the importance of raising our voices during our church service, when I reminded everyone of the letter-writing party.

I stood alone and explained that I'm doing this in memory of my son, who died because he couldn't get health care. Now I'm calling for health care for all.

Then I asked the people wearing Life o' Mike T-shirts to stand up and say it with me. It was louder, although there were only seven people wearing the shirts.

Then I asked the entire congregation to stand up and say it with me. It was deafening. 250 voices calling for health care for all.

That's what we're going to need to be heard above the huge health care corporations who don't want anything to change. Well, maybe one thing -- they would love a health insurance mandate that would drive even more customers to them.

If we want things to change, we all have to raise our voices. We can't just sit quietly and hope things will work out because that won't happen by itself.

Write to your federal legislators. Then write to your state lawmakers and tell them not to slash human services budgets. I know we're in a recession, but letting people go without the help they need is immoral, and no one will hear our voices unless we raise them.