No health care reform = 45,000 preventable deaths each year.

Every wavering Democrat (and all the obstructing Republicans) need to be hammered again and again with this message: right now Congress has the power to pass a healthcare reform bill that will cover almost every American. Because they have the ability to pass it, if they don't (because they're afraid, or bought off, or think it's a political advantage not to pass it) it will be their fault that people are going to die because they don't have insurance.

Their votes for this bill are not a game, it's not just a "win" or a "defeat" for one party or another, it's not a way to stick it to the Ivy League guy in the White House or prove your populist cred. This bill would cover 35 million Americans who don't have health insurance, and 45,000 of them died last year because they didn't insurance. A classmate of some of my wife's colleagues, a student at John Jay, took a semester off from grad school and in doing so lost his insurance. During the period where he had no insurance, he started feeling sick, and knew that he needed to see a doctor but wanted to wait until he had insurance again through school (because in NY, insurance for the period while you're waiting for the semester to kick in again can cost up to $700 a month). While he was waiting to get insurance again, he died, alone in his apartment.

That's what's at stake.