UPDATE: The Republicans are delaying the healthcare vote until after July 4th recess. This is a victory for us, but it’s not over. KEEP CALLING! Hit the Town Halls!
This is it, folks! The GOP is pushing for a Senate vote by the end of this week on their plan to uninsure millions so they can give tax cuts to the super-rich, aka the American Health Care Act or Trumpcare. If it passes, it will be sent back to the House, where a vote could be immediate.
The CBO score on the Senate bill came out today (Monday); this version of the AHCA will effectively force 22 million Americans off of their insurance and make getting insurance essentially impossible for those with pre-existing conditions.
WE NEED TO STOP THIS BILL!
So call your Senators, whether they’re Republicans or Democrats. 5Calls.org has the phone numbers for the DC offices all Senators and House members, as well as numbers for their offices outside of Washington, if you can’t get through. You can also call 202-224-3121 and get yourself transferred to your Senators’ offices. 5Calls has handy scripts to help you figure out what you want to say.
You can call after hours to leave a message; messages are tallied the same as live calls, so this is a great alternative if talking to a Senate staffer makes you anxious. Just remember to give your name and address in order to be properly tallied. If the message box is full, call one of your Senator’s local offices.
Your calls will have the most effect if your Senator is a Republican wavering on the bill; the more calls these Senators get opposing the bill, the easier it will be for them to vote no.
Here are some possibly persuadable Republicans who seem to be leaning towards no:
See a longer list of possibly persuadable Republicans here.
And there here are numerous Republicans who have still not said whether they will vote “yes.” See a list here.
But you should call even if your Senators have seemingly made up their minds. Those opposing the bill appreciate your support, which can provide them with the political cover (or simply the backbone) they need to more actively oppose the bill. And those who support the bill need to know just how much their constituents hate the bill — and hate all those who support it.
And call EVERY DAY THIS WEEK. 5calls.org has a number of different scripts you can use, dealing with different aspects of the bill, to make sure you don’t repeat yourself every time you call.
Call your Congressperson as well, given that the House will be taking up the issue immediately if the bill passes the Senate.
Call your Governor; get a script here.
While you should only call your own representatives, feel free to Tweet at reps in other states as well. You can find links to the Twitter accounts of undecided-leaning-no Republicans here along with a graphic showing how many people in their state will likely lose coverage under Trumpcare.
JUST DO IT! AND THEN DO IT AGAIN!
If you;re looking for real-world protests against the AHCA in your area, subscribe to the RESISTABLE newsletter and/or check out its archives.
Follow me on Twitter for regular updates on the fight against the AHCA as well as for the occasional cute animal pic.
And please feel free to post other useful resources for anti-AHCA activism in the comments below.
I don’t live in the US but I wish all speed to your dialing fingers, all strength to your voices and a last spark of life to whatever faint fragments of conscience remain in the depths of the senators you ring. Good luck!
If this shit hasn’t been settled by the time I’m back from vacation, I’ll make a few calls…
Best of luck to those with GOP Senators. California has only Democrat Senators but best of luck to Kamala Harris and Dianne Feinstein in helping us all oppose the GOP deathcare bill.
Good luck to all American Mammotheers.
@Citizen Rat
We’ll need it. Right now there are 52 people saying No. They need 50/100 votes to pass the bill. So even if all of the remaining GOP decide to say kill the poor, sick and downtrodden, they won’t be able to pass the Trumpcare bill. Even so better to have more GOP members to say No to solidify the idea that this bill should die and stay dead. Also I don’t trust the 4 GOP Senators to keep saying No, but that’s just me.
My e-mail home page has a headline “CBO gives grim marks to GOP health care plan”… and under it a picture of a smiling McConnell… smiling because he has the chance to hurt a lot of people who aren’t… him and aren’t trump.
I hate republicans
“Also I don’t trust the [ ] GOP Senators…”
FTFY
Just called. My senator’s Portman so perhaps I should remind him of all the Medicaid money his district will miss out on to combat the opioid crisis.
Called… got message machines from the two nazi senators, at Jenkins office, I got a person, said my piece, and she thanked me for my concerns in this giddy, sing-songy voice like I’d just wished her a merry fucking christmas… what is wrong with those people??
Ted Cruz is a “no” vote??? TED CRUZ??? What, cuz it doesn’t mandate the death of any women who have sex for non-reproductive purposes???
i gotta go, I’m losing it
Well, I called Portman. It’s really the first time I’ve ever done such a thing, but what hell, I’m a voter. I didn’t vote for him and don’t trust him, but I called.
@lkeke35
Good work!
If you’re in California, you should also be calling your state senator and assemblymember to tell them to support SB 562.
@Katz
Yes I will, and to clarify SB 562 is the universal health care bill in California.
http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-sac-single-payer-shelved-20170623-story.html
Currently it is shelved by Anthony Rendon due to being an “incomplete bill.” Is it just me or is it kind of suspicious that despite the Dems having a majority in all relevant spheres Anthony Rendon did it at the least visible time? Or that alot of them had received a little bit of money from the health industry? Maybe I’m being a bit oversuspicious and drawing conclusions that aren’t there. Regardless we got to keep support for the bill alive or else it’ll fade into the background long before it can be reintroduced.
My guess is that, even if there are enough “No” votes to stop it, McConnell will just pull his anti-democratic “Nuclear option” bullshit again.
Can the UN step in? There’s no way this isn’t legally genocide.
Collins just tweeted she’s a “no”. Going to call her again after the twinadoes are in bed. And again tomorrow. We need at least one other GOP senator besides her.
The cynic in me thinks the Republicans are letting her off the leash to vote “no”, knowing it won’t change the outcome, but will help her win over constituents (similar to her theatrically useless “no” vote on Devos). Word is she’s planning a run for governor next year and needs to position herself with moderates to win. I would love to see Chellie Pingree in her Senate seat.
@ Scented Fucking Hard Chairs
The “nuclear option” is eliminating the filibuster (endless talking to delay a vote). The filibuster isn’t being used here; the vote is happening, and if 51 senators vote against it, it’s dead, at least for the moment.
That said, it’s not likely that 51 senators will vote against it. People like Cruz are merely unhappy that the bill isn’t murderous enough, so after some tweaking, they’ll get on board. The “moderate” Republicans are going through a charade that they have gone through many times before. As Charlie Pierce put it a few days ago:
I’m not American, so I cannot call, but I saw a post online about contacting your Democratic Senators to prepare essentially a fillibuster of ammendments to this bill that would stall it out until the 2018 elections. It’s something that folks with Democratic senators can do, which I think is a fair number of folks here! More information:
https://www.indivisibleguide.com/resource/withholding-consent-filibuster-amendment-call-script/
https://odinsblog.tumblr.com/post/161899624065/butterynutjob-odinsblog-democrats-are-being
Ted Cruz promised he’d repeal the Affordable Care Act without any plan to replace it. That would mean the entire individual plan non-employment private health insurance market would collapse. He’s scary.
It’s important to call GOP senators and representatives if you live in a swing district, even if they won’t budge on the issue. He or she might become a bit more centrist around the next election cycle if there are lots of messages from addresses in the electoral district.
I mean, it is incomplete. It has no funding. The assembly couldn’t pass it as written, because it isn’t functional yet.
Which is, of course, all the more reason to call both your senator and your assembly member and tell them to FINISH WRITING THE GODDAMN BILL so they can pass it for real.
Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski have both said they strongly support disability rights, so they’d better vote against any bill that weakens protections for people with pre-existing or ongoing conditions. Maybe start caucusing with centrist Democrats at some point.
That’s not how caucusing works.
I’m pretty sure that we’ll see the same song and dance in the Senate that we saw in the House, so don’t be heartened that Rand Paul is a no at the moment. He’s a no because it isn’t evil enough yet, and I’m certain it will be by the time it comes to a vote.
I love being reminded, daily, that enormous amounts of people think I deserve to die because I’m disabled.
Genocide indeed.
Hi! Just taking a break from my lurking to say how sorry I am about all this. A bill to cut the health insurance of 22 million people?!?!?!? That is almost the entire population of my country!! I am so angry right now! I wish I could do something to help. 🙁 Keep fighting this!
If this bill passes, within 3 years the death toll will have exceeded US casualties in Vietnam. But it will be hidden. We won’t be seeing war footage, or body bags on the nightly news. Just millions of families, struggling to keep their loved ones alive and not go bankrupt.
Why people aren’t rioting in the streets, I don’t know. Literal Death Eaters have taken over all three branches of our government, and 35% of the population is fine with this. It defies explanation.
@Buttercup
White people
@Axe
White nihilism, yes. That 35% will torch the entire world, and themselves, before they’ll allow the uppity folk to gain even an inch of progress.
Somebody posted on Twitter earlier today that right-wing rage gave us the KKK, while left-wing rage gave us the weekend.
*sigh* Ted Cruz is my senator, who is voting no because it’s not evil enough. I’m sure calling him to tell him it’s too evil already won’t help.
My other senator is John Cornyn, who is voting yes because it’s his duty as a Republican.
And I know it’s too late for this to matter now, but my Congressman is Lamar Smith, who once said that we need to get our news straight from the president’s Twitter feed to get the real truth about anything. He’s also the chair of the House Science committee but doesn’t believe in climate change. I used to have Lloyd Doggett, but he got gerrymandered away from me. I miss him.
So I don’t think me calling anyone will help. Good luck to those of you who can make a difference. My husband has a few pre-existing conditions and we’re worried about them staying covered.
http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/senate-delays-vote-gop-health-care-plan-n777266
The vote is delayed until after July 4 Recess.
Goody, yaaaay, hoorahs all round.
Now everybody needs to find out then and where the various unfortunate R congresscritters will be holding their town halls – or not – and go along to drive the message home. (I rather suspect there will be quite a few where the only senator/house member attending will be a cardboard cutout or other representation of a representative.)
Frank Scheffer as usual, has this in the bag.
http://frankschaefferblog.com/2017/06/welcome-ayn-rand-hell-trump-pence-koch-brothers-curse-name-jesus-christ/