By Eliz Dowdy

The organization Health Care for America Now (HCAN) recently hosted a webinar/conference call to grass roots organizations across America. The emphasis was on how citizens can contact their congressional representatives and convey their messages to the Super Committee. There were over 800

community leaders, activists, organizers, and health care advocates from 47 states and the District of Columbia represented. Those who did not join the webinar early were not able to do so; it was filled to overflowing.

The conference call began with several common policy points: (1) Job creation, not deficit reduction, should be the country’s priority. (2) Significant new revenue from corporations and wealthy individuals is necessary to balance the budget. (3) Medicare and Medicaid should not be cut in any way that pushes costs onto states or beneficiaries, or reduce the access to care. (4) Social Security should be off the table as part of the deficit negotiations.

What is at stake? Everything! Health care for children, seniors, the working poor, and people with disabilities, if law makers decide to slash Medicaid and Medicare as part of the debt reduction. Additionally, jobs will be lost; President Obama’s American Jobs Act could be at risk if it becomes a political trade-off in a debt deal. And the Affordable Healthcare Reform Act that those outside the plantation of plenty applauded will become limp and insipid without the funds. Voters need to open their eyes and take notice of who is leaning toward the palatial bastions of wealth and casting off the less fortunate as filthy clothing, no longer desirable. Any agreement that fails to address these points is not worthy of support. Since citizens have no access to these select members of Congress, they received instructions on the proper protocol for making their voices heard individually and collectively through their elected representatives.

The training focused on agreement: looking for ways to maximize how the Congress Member will work with the organization to call upon the Super Committee to support our position.

The second point, encouragement: Finding multiple messengers to call; for example, several organizations working together sending messengers to their representatives to encourage them to stand undaunted in opposition to cuts for those who need the most. The last scenario was dealing with those who are opposed to job creation, and whose focus is trimming and slashing. There is a need to find creative ways to call upon those members to change. A short role-play skit was presented using Reverend Burns of Metro Baptist Church in Kansas City. He deftly engaged a Congress Member who was not amenable to his way of thinking without resorting to emotional responses, but staying focused on the reason for the call or personal contact

The Super Committee was created to identify an additional 1.5 trillion dollars in deficit reduction. While everyone would like to see deficit spending reduced, the hard core fact remains that America has been in deficit spending mode since 1933, except for the three years President Clinton was able to reverse the trend. It did not take a year after he left office for the spending to return to its deficit cycle.

Our message to the Super Committee, putting America back to work, should be our top priority as a nation. There are currently 14 million Americans looking for work, and they are more concerned about surviving than they are about the deficit. Most realize the deficit ruse is just that, a way to stop the current Administration from accomplishing its goals.

Participants were encouraged to engage their elected representatives when they are in their home districts. The members of the U.S. Senate will be out of session October 24-30; the House recess will be October 17-23. Participants were also instructed to ask their representatives if they are willing to go public with their decisions to cut, trim and slash in their own districts. Those individuals who have been pulled back from disaster by Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security benefits are encouraged to tell their stories to those they elected to represent them. One caller stated that he had been involved in a terrible accident that required fourteen surgeries. Without Medicare he has no idea what his prognosis would be. Another stated that when individuals are engaging their representatives they need to let them know that seniors are out there doing good things in their communities. They are not sitting around playing Bingo and rocking back and forth all day. They are volunteers, tutors, mentors and parent/guardians to their grandchildren. Mary Daley from the Center for Community Change was on the front lines in New York when she joined the discussion telling the organizations what they can instruct their members to do.

At this writing the members of the Super Committee are a microcosm of their parties. The Republicans are slash-happy, and the Democrats have vowed to “Hold the Fort.” They are miles apart and the chances of their coming to a cohesive agreement are slim by all standards.