This comes from Janet Trautwein, CEO of NAHU:
Dear NAHU Members,
As you know, the health care debate has been heating up these last few weeks. While NAHU staff is working hard here in Washington, DC, your continuous grassroots efforts have been an enormous help and have not gone unnoticed.
As many of you may know, Organizing for America and President Obama have called on Americans all over the country to host Health Care Organizing Kickoffs this coming weekend to start a summer full of health care calls to action. Thousands of kickoffs have already been organized but there is still time to get involved. The following link allows you to enter your kickoff information if you choose to be a host: http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/hckickoff. There is also a link to look up kickoffs in your neighborhood that you might want to attend.
As the health care debate moves forward, it is important for NAHU members to be involved in the conversation. NAHU has compiled talking points on several topics that we encourage you to use at every opportunity:
Why a Government-Run Public Plan is Misguided
New Government Health Plan: Message Points for Agents and Brokers
NAHU’s Health Reform Talking Points
If you are attending or hosting a kickoff party this weekend, please review the talking points and other recent information from NAHU (such as Washington Updates) to be informed and well-versed at this weekend’s meetings. It is important that we stay on message and make our points clear. Keep in mind that these kickoffs are public events, which means everyone is invited to come share their thoughts, ideas and opinions, and not everyone will agree with us.
Still looking for more ways to get involved? Remember, in-district meetings, town halls and local participation are key to any and all work that gets done here in Washington, DC. Congress just finished its Memorial Day recess and is back in Washington, DC, but they’ll be heading home several times over the summer months.
Continue to look for our updated Town Hall spreadsheets (attached) for up-to-date listings.
- Congress has a July 4th recess (June 27th- July 5th) and August recess (August 3rd- September 7th) coming up where they will be back home meeting with constituents. Start working with your chapters to set up meetings with members of Congress and their staff during these in-district work periods.
- We want to encourage you, especially our legislative chairs, to help keep yourself and other members informed of the very latest on what’s going with your representatives and senators as far as introducing bills, health care events, additional town halls, etc. This a very simple task to accomplish as most members of Congress have on their official web pages a place to sign up for e-newsletters and updates. Visit http://capwiz.com/nahu/home/ to look up your elected officials and navigate to their websites to sign up for e-mail communications.
- Reach out to your local media. Many of our chapters have already been very successful in using the media to help them spread NAHU’s message. Local newspapers are often looking for letters to the editor. NAHU’s public relations staff already have many sample letters on hand and would be happy to work with you in personalizing the letter for your local media. If you would like help creating a letter to the editor or other information for work with media outreach, please contact Brenda Weigel at bweigel@nahu.org. NAHU also has a brand-new PSA about the value of the agent that has been picked up by 75 radio stations across the country. Has your local radio station heard it?
And remember, all of our recent Operation Shouts are still up on the website (http://capwiz.com/nahu/home/), so if you haven’t contacted your member of Congress with these messages or forwarded the client letters on to your clients, be sure to stay involved!
All of your grassroots work during our weekly Operation Shouts, in-district meetings and town halls are pivotal to NAHU’s work. Thank you for your continued support!
