Dear Mr. Steele, you couldn't be more wrong

Dear Sir:

I appreciate that as the Chairman of the Republican National Committee you feel compelled to challenge the President but Health Care isn’t simply a political football, it’s a life and death matter and I don’t think you really want to come down on the wrong side of this one.

Certainly, it is easy to quote poll numbers that indicate that a large swath of the American public likes their health coverage, but taking that to mean that the health care system is just fine fails to recognize or acknowledge the working poor who have no coverage at all, or the unemployed who have lost theirs. Moreover, taking such a position allows your party to avoid the very real potential that each of us has to lose that satisfactory coverage through job loss or job change. I assure you that any ‘satisfaction’ people feel is entirely illusory. I should know. I once had great health coverage but that job ended. I now not only don’t have much by way of coverage, I’ve also been deemed to be medically uninsurable by two private insurers. Have you no concern for me and others like me?

I understand that your focus is primarily on the cost of any solution to the Health Care mess, but what of the focus on the value of providing quality health care? Rather than stand on the side of “No”, I would urge you to try to change the level of the discourse entirely. Continuing the health care debate from the diametrically opposing viewpoints of "most people are satisfied" vs. "millions using ERs for primary care" does not strike me as a useful route to finding a mutually satisfactory solution.....unless of course, the Republican idea of a solution is to do nothing?

I would remind you that I and others like me are people too. We too have dreams and aspirations….and votes. To stake out a position behind those who are satisfied and ignore those who are not is beneath any party that seeks to lead this or any nation. You cannot please all the people all the time, but you should at least be seen to be trying to take all the people into account as you deliberate.