Dear Senator!

Please stand up to the bill that Sen. Baucus has presented.

The current system murders people (and no, that's not too strong of a word), and this bill does nothing to address the needs of anyone but already wealthy and powerful insurance companies.

There is not enough regulation in this bill to fundamentally change how these companies work. Few people currently uninsured - including my two college-age sons, regretfully - will find a way to afford the ever-increasing costs to by fundamentally-flawed coverage. These insurance companies will continue to have clear ways to deny service paid-for by existing companies, and to deny coverage to those with pre-existing conditions.

The only way to relieve this horrible tax on small employers and the self-employed, the only way to keep people out of the clutches of corporate bureaucrats, the only way to return medical caregivers to the art of healing from the task of accounting, the only way to make our exceptional health care available to all regardless of wealth, is a single payer system.

You know this and I know this.

Cowardice and avarice are the only things keeping the status quo. Politicians' immediate political needs are murdering people. Politicians' immediate needs to feed from lobbyists' troughs are murdering people.

A single payer system is the only way to get the indemnity pool large enough to bring costs down, coverage broad, and to deliver quality care.

Please stand up to this bill.

Please do what you can to deliver a bill to the President's desk by the end of the year that sets in stone immediate, meaningful fundamental change in our healthcare.