Dear President Obama,

Thank you for taking leadership towards winning national health reform. We want to help. We are asking you and our members of Congress:

1. Give us an American solution we know and trust. Expand Medicare to make sure everyone in America is covered by this popular, affordable, publicly financed and publicly administered program.

2. We have learned a lot since the last time. Special interests cant scare us about government-run health care, and losing our choices. Too many of us have had to struggle at our sickest for the care we deserve, even when we were insured. We know that everyone on Medicare can choose our own doctor and hospital, and we do not lose coverage when we get sick. That is the choice we care about.

3. Expand Medicare benefits to address all our needs for preventive, acute, and long-term care, including reproductive health services, prescription drugs, dental, mental health, vision, and alternative and complementary medicine.

4. Stick with your plans to let our doctors and nurses know which treatments are most effective, and encouraging team practices. We all deserve the best quality care.

5. Thank you for investing in public health. It is time to make sure all our social and economic policies make us healthier, from the environment to education, from the dinner table to our transportation systems.

We know that keeping the coverage we have is not a real choice for many in todays economy.

Covering everyone under a publicly-financed, publicly- administered program like Medicare slashes administrative costs from 30\% to 3\% of the health care dollar, and saves money for individuals, employers, and the government.



EQUAL Health includes everyone who supports Equitable, Quality, Universal, Affordable Health care. We include women, who still earn less than men, depend on health care in our reproductive years and later in life, are the majority of caregivers, and find that private health insurance plans charge us more while often denying us care and coverage. We include public health advocates, who understand that universal coverage for heath care is one of the social and economic factors that create healthy and equitable communities.