Dear Ron....

After a flurry of prodding e-mail messages on the subject of health care reform (or the threatened lack of it), I responded today.

Better late than never (and "never" is fast approaching).

What put me over the top? News that among the five senators holding out against the public option is our very own Ron Wyden.

Sheeeesh!

The letter I sent was similar to the one you see below.

In case you are interested (hint, hint), Wyden’s e-mail form can be accessed here:

Senator:

I am writing to urge you to vote for the public option, which is essential to any health care reform package. We need the option because it is NOT out to maximize profits to the detriment of the public's well being.

To the contrary, the public option’s objective is pure and simple — the public’s health.

The savings under a public system are clear:

• No profit motive.

• No exorbitant executive salaries.

• No money for lobbying (and lying) and campaign contributions.

• No inefficient paperwork after the public system converts to computerized record-keeping.

• No astronomical drug prices as the government can negotiate them down through system-wide contracts. (Be sure you pass this provision in the reform package.)

• No marketing abuses by drug companies, including favors and junkets to doctors for using particular drugs.

• No bureaucratic billing and paperwork distractions for doctors. Put doctors on salary so they can focus on practicing medicine.

• No more “illness-centered” medicine. “Wellness-Centered” medicine alone will save billions.

I urge you, as a senate leader on this issue, to step up, speak out and vote for the public option.

Writing Sen. Smith: "Iraq" as "Other"

Earlier this week, I wrote an e-mail to Sen. Gordon Smith to put some steel in his spine about Iraq.

Writing the senator on-line is an exercise in frustration.

Sure, Smith's web site invites you to write him about concerns, but before you do that you need to scroll through a list of topics to choose one to describe your issue.

I'm just guessing, but the categorizing probably allows some mail-answering computer to spit out an appropriate response. "Regarding your concerns about Iraq etc."

This should be easy, I think as I put hand to mouse. Iraq has become our defining issue.

So I set out to find "Iraq" on Smith's topic list, which, oddly, is not arranged alphabetically.

"Terrorism" is high on his list.

I pause there, but pass. I figure "Iraq" is going to scroll into view soon.

There is "administration," whatever that means...Bush? Or...I didn't get my social security check in the mail?....

Scroll on...there's "Defense," which gives pause but doesn't fit. After all, the Iraqis haven't attacked us. On the contrary....

There's "Sudan," so at least one hot spot is listed.

But then here comes the "Clean Diamond Act," which opens a whole visa of possible topics, namely specific pieces of legislation...but it is the only one so honored.

Strange.

Keep scrolling. "Foreign Relations." I don't think so.

Buried in the list is "Other," which I am beginning to view as a hollow fall-back topic for "Iraq."

And then I come to the end. No "Iraq."

I scroll back up thinking I have missed it.

I haven't.

Maybe Sen. Smith wishes it would just go away. If only.

Perhaps the site hasn't been updated since the fall of 2002, when Smith and his colleagues voted to permit the president to invade "other."

In desperation I choose "Defense" and begin with, "Senator, I respectfully submit that 'Iraq' be put on your topics list. And here's why......"

P.S. Sen. Ron Wyden's web site has a similar list. "Iraq" is a listed topic.