{"id":1367,"date":"2010-03-21T20:48:40","date_gmt":"2010-03-22T01:48:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.marcstier.com\/wordpress\/?p=1367"},"modified":"2011-07-23T22:04:49","modified_gmt":"2011-07-23T22:04:49","slug":"with-tears-in-my-eyes%e2%80%a6thanks-to-all-of-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/?p=1367","title":{"rendered":"With tears in my eyes\u2026thanks to all of you"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear Friends,<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I’m writing this with tears in my eyes.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

They are tears of exhaustion. Like so many of you, I’ve been working on this campaign for twenty months that seemed like five years. We’ve had so many ups and downs and sometimes we doubted we’d get there.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

They are tears of sadness. It’s hard, at this moment, not to think about all the stories I’ve heard during the last twenty months, stories of people suffering and dying because they lack adequate health insurance. What we are doing today is long, long overdue.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

They are tears of laughter as I think about all the ludicrous things the Republicans said today. They have put themselves out on a right wing limb that, with our help, the American people are going to saw off in the next few years.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

They are tears of regret. This legislation is incredibly important and will do so much good. But it is not as good as I had hoped it would be.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

They are tears of hope. I firmly believe that what we are doing today will help move us forward not just\u00a0on health care but on other issues: creating jobs, protecting our environment, improving education, reforming our immigration laws, protecting our freedom including freedom on the internet, and extending the full rights of citizens to the LGBT community.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

They are tears of joy because this is such an amazing achievement, the most important domestic legislation since the 1960s.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

But most of all, they are tears of gratitude. Gratitude to President Obama and the Democratic members of the House who voted with us today, especially those from Pennsylvania.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Gratitude to the incredible HCAN and Pennsylvania Health Access Network (PHAN) teams\u2014Gregg Potter, Antoinette Kraus, Athena Ford, Katy Weeks, Jeff Garis, Richard McVay, Robin Stelly, Roxie Pauline, Maryellen Hayden, Ian Phillips, Ali Kronley, Ted Zimmer, Dave Ninehouser, Alison Hirsch, Diana Ames; the great people from our union partners who have worked so hard on this campaign, especially Diane Topakian, John Meyerson, Kati Sipp, Matthew Brokman, Yael Foa, and Liz McElroy; the MoveOn Pennsylvania team, Steve Nathan and Mike Lambert; the OFA team of Elizabeth Lucas and David Knight and our guide from US Action Brenda Barron.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Gratitude to people Maureen Kurtek, Stacy Ritter, Georgeanne Koehler and Ann Stanton, and the late Melanie Shouse, who were determined to make something good come out of their suffering and that of their family members.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

And most of all, they are tears of gratitude to all of you who have worked for so long and so hard to make this day possible. This victory belongs to all of you.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I am old enough to remember the civil rights movement and the beginnings of the environmental movement. But I’m not old enough to know what it was really like to be part of a huge movement for reform, created by a huge coalition; determined to change the direction of this country; focused on improving\u00a0 the lives of tens of\u00a0 millions of people, and ultimately successful in the end.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Today all of us know what that is like. And it is truly a wonderful thing.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Thanks so much to all of you have been a part of it. You have changed America. And no one will ever forget what you have done.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Marc<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Marc Stier
\nPA State Director
\nHealth Care For America Now
\nMarcStier@hcanpa.org
\n(215) 880-6142<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Friends, I’m writing this with tears in my eyes. Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p35YuU-m3","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1367"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1367"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1367\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5725,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1367\/revisions\/5725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}