Chrisy58’s Weblog

With the Health Care Bill vote coming soon I decided to write Rep. Jeff Flake my thoughts.  Actually one of my Catholic email groups sent and email asking us to write.

Here is a copy of my email.  Feel free to copy and paste parts of it for your own letter to your own Congressman.

Go to www.house.gov

It will help you find your own Rep.

Dear Congressman Flake,

I am writing about the Health Care Bill that you will be voting on.  Before you voted I wanted to share my thoughts.  I think it is important that you know what the people who live in your district think.

Please pass a health care reform bill that provides universal health insurance for ALL Americans.  The current bill only covers 96% of legal residents in our country and the Congressional Budget Office estimates that 12 million people will be excluded.

I know that many working people in your district, like myself have no insurace.  Either our company doesn’t provide it because we don’t work the necessary hours or it is to expensive.  There are people who make to much money to apply for the state health insurance but not enough money to buy insurance on their own if they can’t get it through work.  Many of us have cronic health problems and yet we can’t see a doctor because we don’t have health insurance.  Many of us are between a rock and a hard place.  Someone has to fight for Americans to have health insurance and not for the insurance companies.

Please pass a health care reform bill that allows undocumented immigrants the opportunity to purchase health insurance from the proposed health insurance exchange.  The current House bill does not allow this.  Allowing undocumented immigrants to cover their own health costs not only makes economic sense but it is also the right thing to do morally.

As a Catholic I believe it is morally right that all people who are living and working in this country have acess to medical care when needed.  It only makes sense as if they are sick than if they can’t get medical care than it only makes the rest of us in AZ sick too.  With the swine flu this season it only makes sense to me that all people who are living and working in AZ should be able to see a doctor and be treated if they are ill.

Please pass a health care reform bill that maintains the status quo with respect to the prohibitions of federal funding for abortion as governed by the Hyde Amendment.  There is a broad consensus – which includes the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops – that the focus of this debate should be on providing universal health care and not on abortion.  The status quo should be maintained. 

Abortion should not be included in a health care Bill.  Federal funding should not go to the funding of abortion.  God belived in free will and free choice, but if a woman decides to have an abortion she should pay for it and not the state.  To many of us who follow the teachings of the Catholic Church we are pro-life and we don’t want to pay with our tax payer money the murder of an unborn child.  I am not saying abortion shouldn’t be legal, but that abortion should not be part of this health care Bill and I hope that you will fight to keep abortion out of it.

Thank you very much for reading my thoughts as you are deciding how you are going to vote.

Christine Cosser