Eclectique Citizen: Health Care Reform 2 – the Committees
Update: Senator Edward Kennedy’s 615-page Health, Education, Labor, Pensions (HELP) Committee bill for health care reform is now available online.
Daily Kos, always a good source for the latest on all things political and Hill-worthy, has a list of committees dealing with health care reform and contact information provided by DrStevenB. Here’s a link to the Majority Leaders website on health care reform: http://majorityleader.house.gov/members/health_care.cfm
Regardless of where you stand on the topic, DrSteveB prescribes good information…including a link to an article by Atul Gawande published in The New Yorker about McAllen, Texas, a border town and the country’s most expensive place for health care. Apparently this article has been circulating in the White House.
To bring this back to why this matters to the Eclectique Citizen, please [re]read my post about singer Pam Bricker (posted March 3, 2009).
HOUSE COMMITTEES
Update: Go to https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml for contact information for Republican Committee members. The information was not included in the original post on Daily Kos as it appears below perhaps under the “lost cause” status…but you never know.
Energy & Commerce:
Committee Telephone: 202-225-2927
And the Subcommittee on Health
Democrats:
Henry A. Waxman (Chairman) CA-30th 202-225-3976
Frank Pallone, Jr., Chairman, Health Subcommittee) NJ-6th 202-225-4671
John D. Dingell, Chairman Emeritus MI-15th 202-225-4071
Lois Capps, Vice Chair CA-23rd 202-225-3601
Bart Gordon, TN-6th 202-225-4231
Anna G. Eshoo, CA-14th 202-225-8104
Eliot L. Engel, NY-17th 202-225-2464
Gene Green, TX-29th 225-1688
Diana DeGette, CO-1st 202-225-4431
Jan Schakowsky, IL-9th 202-225-2111
Tammy Baldwin, WI-2nd 202-225-2906
Mike Ross, AR-4th 202-225-3772
Anthony D. Weiner, NY-9th 202-225-6616
Jim Matheson, UT-2nd 202-225-3011
Jane Harman, CA-36th 202-225-8220
Charles A. Gonzalez, TX-20th 202-225-3236
John Barrow, GA-12th 202-225-2823
Donna M. Christensen, VI-delegate 202-225-1790
Kathy Castor, FL-11th 202-225-3376
John P. Sarbanes, MD-3rd 202-225-4016
Christopher S. Murphy, CT-5th 202-225-4476
Zachary T. Space, OH-18th 202-225-6265
Betty Sutton, OH-13th 202-225-3401
Bruce L. Braley, IA-1st 202-225-2911
Republicans:
Nathan Deal, GA, Ranking Member
Ralph M. Hall, TX
Ed Whitfield, KY
John Shimkus, IL
John B. Shadegg, AZ
Roy Blunt, MO
Steve Buyer, IN
Joseph R. Pitts, PA
Mike Rogers, MI
Sue Wilkins Myrick, NC
Tim Murphy, PA
Michael C. Burgess, TX
Marsha Blackburn, TN
Phil Gingrey, GA
Joe Barton, TX (ex officio)
Education & Labor:
Telephone 202-225-3725
Holding single payer hearings on June 10!
Democrats:
George Miller, Chairman CA 7th 202-225-2095
Robert Andrews, Chair Subcommittee HELP, NJ-1st 202-225-6501
David Wu OR-1st 202-225-0855
Phil Hare IL-17th 202-225-5905
John F. Tierney MA-6th 202-225-8020
Dennis J. Kucinich OH-10th 202-225-5871
Marcia Fudge OH-11th 202-225-7032
Dale E. Kildee MI-5th 202-225-3611
Carolyn McCarthy NY-4th 202-225-5516
Rush Holt NJ-12th 202-225-5801
Joe Sestak PA-7th 202-225-2011
David Loebsack IA-2nd 202-225-6576
Yvette Clarke NY-11th 202-225-6231
Joe Courtney CT-2nd 202-225-2076
Republicans:
John Kline, Ranking Member
Joe Wilson
Cathy McMorris Rodgers
Tom Price
Brett Guthrie
Tom McClintock
Duncan D. Hunter
David P. Roe
Ways & Means:
Tel: 202-225-3625 | Fax: 202-225-2610
Democrats:
Charles B. Rangel, Chariman Ways and Means NY-15th 202-225-4365
Pete Stark, Chairman Subcommittee on Health CA-13th 202-225-5065
Lloyd Doggett, TX-25th 202-225-4865
Mike Thompson, CA-1st 202-225-3311
Xavier Becerra, CA-31st 202- 225-6235
Earl Pomeroy, ND-At Large 202-225-2611
Ron Kind, WI WI 3rd 202-225-5506
Earl Blumenauer, OR-3rd 202-225-4811
Bill PascrellJr. NJ-8th 202-225-5751
Shelley Berkley, NV-1st 202-225-5965
Republicans:
Wally Herger, CA, Ranking Member
Sam Johnson, TX
Paul Ryan, WI
Devin Nunes, CA
Ginny Brown-Waite, FL
This week’s Community Organizer Hall of Famer: Markos Moulitsas Zuniga aka Kos
If I were stranded on an island today, I would want these three books at my side:
The Martha Rules: 10 Essentials for Achieving Success as You Start, Build, or Manage a Business by Martha Stewart
Meditations of the Heart by Howard Thurman (a collection of meditations and prayers)
And Taking On the System: Rules for Radical Change In a Digital Era by Markos Moulitsas Zuniga aka founder of Daily Kos.
Actually, this is my introduction for this week’s Community Organizers Hall of Famer: Markos Moulitsas Zuniga. Granted, I’m sometimes the last to know things and sometimes the first to figure things out. The blogger Markos or “Kos” as he’s known among army buddies and the blogsphere founded the Daily Kos in 2002. I added Daily Kos to my daily even hourly reading in August after several emails were forwarded to me from Kos diarists admonishing and setting political newbies (like me) straight during our freak outs over polls, election predictions by MSM, and other swinging tires that were just part of the routine for the pros. But don’t assume that means they take politics lightly.
Markos’ first three sentences on the first Daily Kos post were;
I am progressive. I am liberal. I make no apologies.
There it is. Like it or not, you know where he stands. Markos said he founded Daily Kos for one simple reason: “I felt ill-served by the undemocratic gatekeeping mentality so prevalent in our society.” A bit-o-bio: Marcos grew up in El Salvador. At age 9 his family fled the country to avoid its civil war. He joined the United States Army in 1989 and served in the Gulf War. He says he entered the army as a Republican, but emerged a Democrat.
Daily Kos has created a community, but Markos isn’t the HBIC (Head Blogger In Charge) of this community. He’s the guy with the tool box building, tinkering, welding – making the new technology into a platform for people to connect, coordinate, and yes, fight for the change they believe in – cultural, political, and environmental etc. This is not to say they haven’t had a few skirmishes on-line between Daily Kos, it’s editors, and subscribers. The primaries with the Clinton-Obama contest in full swing got a bit brutal on-line. Some abandoned the blog. [I’m not sure if they’ve returned. I wasn’t reading it daily it at that time.] But nevertheless, Daily Kos and community remain on schedule and on track.
The Daily Kos analysis of the polls and stats are unbeatable. If they can’t do it, Daily Kos’s references to other numbers crunchers like Nate Silver of www.fivethirtyeight.com or www.pollster.com are your better bet. But the Kos analysis lets you now who’s screwing up (polls and candidates), who’s moving ahead, and who needs to just get out of the way across the board.
“You can’t change the world without conflict.”
Markos is fortunate to recognize this early. Or as Gandhi said, “A No uttered from deepest conviction is better and greater than a Yes merely uttered to please, or what is worse, to avoid trouble.”
“Change without conflict” doesn’t neatly apply to everything like who gets to hold the remote, but change is work. Hard work. Change can stir up trouble. And in my life-long civilian observations I’ve seen and learned that “Change doesn’t come easy.” Someone who’s able to organize people around principled ideas, using resources at hand – computer and modem — not asking permission or approval from gatekeepers and actually making things happen can’t be ignored by friends and foe alike. Markos has provided a platform for people who actually aim to get things done. It’s not the top-down approach; besides netroots really doesn’t work that way.
The stats on Daily Kos: Daily Kos attracts 2-4 million daily visits. Markos is a regular columnist for Newsweek, and The Hill. People en Espanol named him among the “100 Most Influential Hispanics,” and he was third in Forbes magazine’s “Web Celeb 25,” and ranked 26 in PC World’s list of the “Most Important People on the Web.” And he has a J.D. from Boston University. But Markos appears to be an eclectique citizen – he plays the piano (when he can) and composes music (when he can). http://www.dailykos.com/special/music.
Martha, Howard, and Markos. Who’d thought this would be my island trio. People who know me, know I admire a good principled fighter. There’s no one style or standard for fighting back or onward. These fighters are not perfect people. [Though Martha aims to achieve it.] They are unashamedly committed to their principles, purpose, and will tweak when necessary.
I’m about to go into my second reading of Markos’ Taking on the System. I refer back to Martha’s Rules which I read before I went self-employed; and Meditations is a constant.
On this island I am not alone or stranded.
To Love Life truly is to be whole in all one’s parts; and to be whole in all one’s parts is to be free and unafraid.
Howard Thurman