50 million people in this country have no health care insurance.

Some can’t afford it. Some aren’t willing to pay the outrageous fees they are being charged because of a pre-existing condition or previous ailments. A few just don’t want it.

And because they don’t have insurance, they have no access to preventative care, early diagnosis or general wellness.  We have no idea how much that costs us eventually in Medicare and public assistance.

But we do know about the billions the private insurance companies make and millions they spend trying to prevent covering the wrong procedures or people.

A public health care plan would change this by giving every American access to affordable health care.

Private insurance companies complain this will make it impossible for them to compete—as if their profits were more important than saving American lives.

In fact, it will help private insurers by covering the people they spend millions to not cover. And it will help small businesses, entrepreneurs, freelancers and the entire economy by creating jobs by relieving employers the onerous burden of providing decent health benefits.

Creating a public health care plan could save your life.  Or the lives of your friends, families, fellow Americans.  And we will retain our system of private insurers who will be forced to offer premium care and service.

Here’s the serious part.  Our best and only chance public health care plan could die in the next few weeks.

The opponents of universal care are powerful, as powerful as the banks, those banks that’ve retained an iron grip on Congress even after causing this Great Recession.

The attacks against a public plan will be shady, targeted and smart.  Really stilted TV ads are already darkening our airwaves

We need a creative aftershock to the earthquake that helped get Obama elected.

We need everyone to tell the story of health care.

You need to explain what a public plan mean to you.  Tell people about your experiences being denied coverage.  These stories can be personal and painful, but they are poignant and necessary.

We also need filmmakers, poets, writers and all creative sorts to tell the story of why a public plan maters to us as a people.

And we need everyone to know why NOW maters so much.  Universal health care has been the goal of Democratic administrations throughout the 20th century.  But the current recession reveals how important it is become a more responsible, empathetic society.

This President has the will of the people behind him.

But unless we can tell the story of why a public health care plan matters so much, the private insurance industry and their friends in the GOP will defeat a bill that could save your life.

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