ONE PHYSICIAN’S PLEA TO REP. DAVIS

I am grateful for the updates you send each week.
I am responding on another issue and I hope you can forward my email to Congressman Davis and other staff in the office as you see fit.
My comment is on the pending Health Care Reform bill that will likely come up for a vote this weekend.
I am aware Congressman Davis voted against the House Bill that passed in 2009.  I can understand why.  It was not a perfect Bill.

That said, as a physician who works in Birmingham taking care of patients at University Hospital and in the AIDS Clinic at UAB, I can tell you the current Health Care system is a mess…and getting worse.  A vote against the Bill this weekend has the net effect of maintaining the status quo for several more years. 
We can’t afford that…either financially or morally.
I could regale you with first hand stories ... Tragedies ...I witness daily among the patients I see.  But suffice it to say, as I wrote in a published paper 5 years ago:
“The safety net that catches the patients who fall through the cracks of our diseased health care delivery system is made up solely of the fabric of providers who give a damn”

If providers didn’t care…if we didn’t go the extra mile, every day…the full brunt of the system would be in everyone’s face.  It would be very, very ugly.And these folks, these healthcare heroes, are wearing out…I see it ...and it worries me.  Worries me a lot.  I don’t think the health care providers can keep this up much longer. 
The Bill likely to come before Rep Davis this weekend is not perfect.  Far from it.  But it is a start…something we all can build upon.  It gives us a foothold.  It gives us hope that things, one day, will be better.

I know the politics of this is particularly difficult for Rep Davis.  He is about to run for Governor of our State.  I support him fully!  And I know his opponents in that race will take shots at him for voting in favor of this Bill. 
But I figure, Rep Davis is going to be saddled with being affiliated with the ‘liberal agenda’ of the Democratic Congress no matter how he votes.  If not in favor of this issue, there are others with which he will be labeled.  And my sense is that once this Bill passes, and the public learns of the true benefits it provides (not the hateful false rhetoric in the media and elsewhere)...the public will become overwhelmingly in favor of this groundbreaking law.  Much like the public is in favor of Social Security today.

What concerns me for him is that the more progressive voters…who would support him 1000% ...will lose faith in him.  OR at least fail to give him their full support…or worse…fail to be motivated to even turn up to vote for him.  This is what I think happened, at least in part, in Massachusetts this past winter.  Sure she was a bad candidate…but she did not inspire the core to even show up.

Please forward this message to Rep Davis. 
I recall with great fondness the times I have had to share thoughts with him; most notably on a delayed plane ride from Atlanta to Birmingham a few years ago.  We talked Constitutional Law.  I learned a lot from him.
He is a great man.  Our State needs him.  I am proud to support him.
I hope he will find the courage to vote in favor of this Bill.  Many, many people depend on it…not the least of which are the health care providers whose will is fraying as they try to catch all of the patients who the current system ignores so blatantly.

Thanks for all you and Rep Davis do for all of us every day.

Respectfully,

MSS
Michael S. Saag, MD
Jim Straley Chair in AIDS Research
Director, Center for AIDS Research

Service Opportunity

We hope to see everyone working together with the Metropolitan Birmingham Services for the Homeless on April 10, 20100.  Email .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) for more information and to fill out volunteer form. Click here for more information:  SCN_0007.pdf

What’s on deck…

Back in early January, as we began to plan activities for 2010, we developed a list of various issues we thought would be appropriate to explore and emphasize, that would appeal to the membership of OTM Dems, and be worthy of our attention and efforts.  We discussed ways and methods to educate ourselves, as well as carry our concerns and views to the general public. It is, after all, part of OTM Dems purpose to plant more “Blue” flags in our predominantly “Red” neighborhoods. We asked for input and ideas from the larger group at our meeting in the 3rd week of January. I highlighted those initial ideas, and added those generated from the “floor”, on my technology-challenged, wooden easel- mounted, butcher-paper flip chart. (Thanks for your remarkable patience!)

We’ve made progress on a few of those ideas, I’m glad to say. We reviewed area politics and issues at a standing-room-only meeting in February with our guests local newspaper columnists John Archibald and Kyle Whitmire.  As I write this, we’re just a few days away from our March meeting and an appearance from Alabama Arise’s Kimble Forrister. He’ll coach us on how to take effective action to encourage our legislators to remove the state portion of sales tax on groceries – an issue deemed critical by a large number of our members.  We’re planning now for events in April, May, and beyond, that you’ll hear more about in the near future. Member Linda Cohn is organizing a service opportunity to aid less fortunate citizens of our community – more to come in the next few days.  On April 13th, the Faith & Politics Roundtable will screen “Open Secret”, a short film based on the actual transcripts of the 1901 Alabama Constitutional Convention. The filmmaker, Melanie Jeffcoat, will join us. Even as we work at this ambitious pace, that list of issues that we developed in January remains long. It has lots of good ideas that deserve our attention.

Read More . . .

In the beginning…

As the third generation of leaders for OTMDems gets a solid start out of the gate, we would do well to revisit briefly our original purpose and design.  In the immediate aftermath of the 2004 election it seemed that our party had fairly well reached its nadir in these parts.  Party-switching raged, spirits were abysmal, and most everyone of our stripe was feeling thoroughly discouraged, isolated and powerless.  As W, Dick, and Donald gloated, those were dark days indeed.  However, there existed here any number of generally ordinary and anonymous folk who believed they might go stark-raving mad if they didn’t do something more than continue to argue with their televisions and lecture their kids at the supper table.  We were pediatricians and teachers, realtors and retailers, accountants and lawyers, bankers and business people, from every walk of life.  More importantly, we were little league coaches and scout leaders, PTA committee chairs and deacons, too.  What we shared was that we were Democrats, and we felt a call to action.

Read More . . .