An Open Letter to A Congressman,
The Honorable Richard Neal
December 11, 2018
Dear Congressman Neal:
Today I am reliving the overwhelming sense of despair I felt on election night, when you won your bid for re-election. Let’s start with that. It’s not that I wanted a Republican in that office. But Sir, you have been in congress for 20 years. In that time, we have not made progress on poverty, health care, housing, homelessness, women’s reproductive rights, equality or the pursuit of happiness. We have gone backwards, due in large part to the culture among long-time congressional representatives like yourself.
What I mean by culture is exemplified by your recent attacks, as incoming Ways and Means Committee chair, on those advocating for Medicare for All. You are telling proponents to be calmer, and calling them unrealistic. “I think that there is an approach that is a little more incremental in nature,” you have said.
Sir, your incremental steps keep pushing us backwards. Incremental steps have made a mess of our climate, our health care system, our immigration system and our education. Right here in the Pioneer Valley, which you are elected to represent, thousands of your constituents – farmers and factory workers, students and immigrants, the poor and the marginalized – are suffering from the fact that laws have not been based on our stories.
At the rate you are going, it will take 500 years for women to achieve equal representation in politics (The Nation, 3/7/2014). Can you imagine what 500 more years of white, conservative, male-dominated ideas about health care will do to the gap between rich and poor?
Sir, the health care crisis in this country is as out of control as a war zone. People are having to triage competing medical needs, and triage family medical expenses in competition with rent and heat and electricity.
The American health care system increases income inequality (The Atlantic, 1/19/2018). You can look all you want at figures corporate representatives feed you about the costs of launching a progressive idea for health care. You can call it Medicare for All, a universal health care plan, a single payer system, or national health care. Call it socialized medicine if you want. But please don’t dismiss it as irrelevant to your scheme of priorities.
You have sworn to do no damage. You have sworn to represent your own constituents in whatever debates about national policy are taking place. Sir, 80% of the democratic party and 70% of the American people as a whole want some form of national health care (The Hill, 8/23/2018). We are seeing new reports all the time on the savings that are possible with a national health care program. This is what we want.
Enrolling every citizen in a single health care program is not a new idea. It has been implemented in some form in 32 out of 33 developed countries. Let that sink in. We are the only developed country without it, and that is because of the culture of our government – particularly the influence of corporate dollars. Everything about the current system, everything about proceeding in incremental steps, does more damage.
When your decisions are molded by the donations of corporate pharmaceutical representatives and medical organizations, you are bound to lose sight of the real lives of people here in the Pioneer Valley, which you are supposed to represent.
“Neal—who has served as the top Ways and Means Democrat since 2016—has received more insurance industry cash throughout his career than any other member of the incoming Congress, including Republicans. . . Neal has relied on support from the health care industry, receiving $950,000 from health professionals and associations and $750,000 from the pharmaceutical industry.” (Eoin Higgins, Sludge online magazine, 12/5/18)
On primary election night last month, I wanted to see a new day coming in government. Toward that end, I supported another Democrat running for your congressional seat, a young Muslim woman. You came close to losing because of her. So many of us wanted representatives from our state to be young and progressive, by definition free from the lethargic culture that you and others of 20 years tenure in Congress seem to think is the only way to do business. That’s why Ayanna Pressley won.
We need representatives who know how urgently we require bold, progressive actions, actions that move us more rapidly and with clear thinking towards our values and ideals. Most of all, we need people in Congress whose actions are not dictated by lobbyists.
If your plan as the new chair of the House Ways and Means committee is to conduct business as usual, to appease corporate interests, to wriggle out of criticism by making little tiny changes or to avoid responsibility by pointing the finger at Republicans, please take a moment on my behalf.
Don’t overthink this. Those little incremental steps you like have created monsters. Don’t keep walking down that rutted path, holding hands with the monsters. Look to your left. Wide roads have been built over there, through the bramble and the undergrowth. Rough ways have been made smooth. Crooked paths have been straightened. Mountains and hills have been made low (Isaiah 40:4).
Go on over. Talk to immigrants and indigenous people. Talk to students and people of color. Talk to the caregivers of elders with Alzheimer’s and dementia. Talk to the parents of children with special needs. Talk to women and families of prisoners and drug addicts. Talk to the democratic socialists. Embrace the possibilities.
