We’ve put together a few resources to help you do just that:

Congress.org has several resources for taking action now.  Follow the link and you’ll be able to look up your representatives by zip code using a box on the left.  Below that is a set of resources for other actions you can take including finding organizations and other activists.

http://www.congress.org/congressorg/home

BarackObama.com has a “Healthcare Action Center” with many different resources to support the president in his work.  It includes tools for donating, making calls to people, writing letters to editors and much more.

http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/health-care-action-center/

PrescriptionForChange.org has an “Act Now” page that helps you email your congressperson.  It starts out with a great letter than you can customize to your liking:

http://www.prescriptionforchange.org/

http://www.kpbs.org/news/2009/aug/03/high-cost-healthcare-part-1/

Also if you’ve been following the news lately the House has released the text the following bill: America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009

The text is over 1000 pages but you can read an overview and find more information here:

http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h3200/show

In this web-exclusive Ezekiel Emanuel explains his “Healthcare Guaranteed” plan.

“I think the universal part appeals to the Democrats. The voucher part appeals to Republicans. And I think it should make us one big happy family,” Dr. Emanuel tells David Brancaccio.

The video is about 5 minutes long and is a great resource for those who want an overview of how this very practical plan works.  If you’re interested in learning more you can read Ezekiel Emanuel’s book “Healthcare Guaranteed.”

Obama’s and Emanuel’s health reform principles compared.pdf

For us it started as numerous individuals who were summoned by the then President-Elect Obama to gather in neighborhood groups with the purpose of changing America from the grassroots up.

There were calls for change in a number of areas – immigration, infrastructure, environment and many more.

Our particular call came from the health care arena, where many of us had either personally borne the pains of our current system, or had family members or friends who had been negatively affected by it.

We met for the first time at the home of a brave and valiant citizen who, herself, was still recovering from ravishes of cancer, and had no insurance due to having used it while being sick and subsequently finding herself uninsurable by the insurance companies.

For a couple of hours we listened to story after story of how our current system had failed its citizens. At one point we broke out into smaller groups to discuss issues and solutions. In my small group of six citizens, three were cancer survivors who had lost their insurance. One had a critically ill daughter living in a country with national health insurance because she couldn’t get insurance here; and the others were currently unemployed and needing medical care but afraid to use their COBRAs for fear of becoming uninsured should they seek medical care and then not be able to secure new insurance later on. The stories, shared with a mixture of tears, despair and hope, were heart wrenching.

As we had come together with a common theme, we were also encouraged and hopeful in a uniform way that the new administration coming into leadership in Washington, DC would pull us out of this quagmire should we be loud enough to be heard and have sensible ideas and plans.

As a result, those of us with common ideas decided to move forward with further meetings and discussions. Now, almost six months later, we have read several books, including Tom Daschle’s and Ezekiel Emanuel’s books on health care reform; compared them with Obama’s own now stated principles, attended numerous neighborhood and political district meetings, responded to emails from both Organizing for America and MoveOn.org, and contacted numerous political officials with our ideas.

We have also developed a website (ReformHealthCare.org); developed a logo, written articles, and developed a Mission Statement which is “We advocate for quality, affordable health care for all, regardless of current or past health conditions”.

As a result of our commitment to health care reform, and after much reading, researching and discussion, we have settled on those principles which appear to make sense and have a chance to succeed. Though ours were worded somewhat differently and we came at them through different means, our thoughts paralleled Emanuel’s principles so closely that we decided to embrace his approach.

Accordingly, we support and advocate to those in Washington who are working on a new health care plan for America, Ezekiel Emanuel’s 7 Health Care goals, which are as follows:

1) 100% guaranteed healthcare coverage for all Americans, regardless of health status, with a standard set of benefits;

2) Effective cost controls that reduce administrative overhead and rein in the rising costs of healthcare inflation through and Institute of Technology and Outcomes Assessment;

3) High-quality, coordinated carte with government oversight that fosters the infrastructure, information systems, and financial incentives for high-quality health outcomes, and that holds providers accountable to achieve them;

4) Choice of health insurance plans, doctors, and hospitals, as well as the option to purchase additional healthcare benefits;

5) Fair funding that requires all Americans to contribute their fair share to funding the healthcare system;

6) Reasonable dispute resolution the replace the current malpractice system; and

7) Economic revitalization that results from eliminating health insurance from the purview of business.

We implore the House of Representatives and the Senate, spearheaded by the committees within them and such leaders as Senators Edward Kennedy and Max Baucus, to hear us and to incorporate these concepts into the plans which are being developed and will be up for vote later this year. We also implore members of Congress to set aside partisanship, resist the influence of lobbyists, and make a strong and powerful statement to America that we have a responsibility to our citizens to ensure that they have needed healthcare across the board.

Sincerely,

ReformHealthCare.org