I started working on healthcare reform in the early 1990s and I am writing to ask you to give $5 to support our work to pass comprehensive, affordable healthcare

Friend, are you tired of having to fight for your right to just have affordable health care? Boy, do I hear you. I've been at this, off and on, since the beginning of my career in the early 1990s. Back then, I was on the staff of then-Rep. Ron Wyden from Oregon. His seat on the Health and Environment Subcommittee of the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee meant that we were in the middle of that last big Democratic push to make health care a thing people didn't have to worry about. The one Hillary Clinton led, the one that turned her into enemy #1 for Republicans. How little things change. All the way back then, the health care industry and the members of Congress it was bankrolling—Democratic and Republican alike—were fighting against the idea that the government needed to make sure everyone could afford to go to the doctor when they needed to. We lost that battle, though my boss and I had a few wins along the way. Medical schools finally incorporated training in their curriculum to help providers screen for domestic violence because of work we did. Medical abortions are available now in the U.S. because Wyden fought to have RU-486 imported here, and I got to help. I came out of that experience more committed than ever to the idea of universal, quality, affordable health care and to our right to have it. Little did I know what that was going to get me into when I signed up to write for Daily Kos full time back in 2007. [Daily Kos has been on the frontlines for the battle of healthcare since day 1. We will continue to fight until every American has access to affordable and comprehensive healthcare. But we can't continue this fight without your help. We are $90,298 from reaching our July budget goal. Can you give $5 today to help us out?]( Since I joined the community in 2004(!), I've written more than 14,600(!!) stories at Daily Kos, and I don't even want to know how many are about health care. But I'd bet that since 2007, when health care started to dominate the Democratic presidential debate, it's accounted for at least a fourth of my work here. And all of my gray hairs. But I wouldn’t change a thing. I've been able to contribute to the national dialogue for the past 12 years on this critical issue, and maybe even to help educate, to help give activists like you the vocabulary and the information to be an advocate. That’s a challenge because the arcana and intricacies of health insurance is dry, dry, dry. Ain't nothing that makes it exciting except the threat that it's not going to be there anymore for you. But over the years we’ve had that conversation and now the nation is so much more ready to have the next one about healthcare reform—about Medicare for All—because of the work we’ve done together. [Over the past 17 years, the Daily Kos community has probably taken over two million actions to expand health care coverage and defend Obamacare. We can get to Medicare for All, but we need your help to keep the fight going. Can you give $5 today?]( And as sick as I am of writing about healthcare day in and day out, I am so proud to be part of this community that has kept a focus on this issue for so long. A community that is in large part responsible for the fact that the Affordable Care Act still exists and that got a House of Representatives elected in 2018 to make sure it didn't get repealed. (By Congress, anyway. The courts are a subject for a whole different email!) We talk about Daily Kos as news you can do something about, whether it's coming from Meteor Blades on the environment or Gabe on immigration or me on health care. If that's something you value, help Daily Kos keep providing it. If you've gone into conversations about these issues confident in your knowledge, if you've felt emboldened to activism thanks to what you've read on Daily Kos (or if Hunter has given you a belly laugh when you thought there was no way the news would ever make you do anything but despair) help us keep it coming. [Please support the work we do here at Daily Kos by helping us reach our goal.]( Thank you for all you do, Joan McCarter, Senior Political Writer Daily Kos If you wish to donate by mail instead, please send a check to Daily Kos, PO Box 70036, Oakland, CA, 94612. Contributions to Daily Kos are not tax deductible. Sent via [ActionNetwork.org](. To update your email address, change your name or address, or to stop receiving emails from Daily Kos, please [click here](.