One percenters, Day Three: There is no free market for health insurance, stupid Republicans.

What's a One Percenter? Click here for more information.

Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid recently announced that they'll back some form of public option. Did they cave to pressure from my blog? Or just realize that they were tired of letting insurance companies laugh while children die?

Either way, now is not the time to let up on Congress. Keep telling them: I will pay one percent of my gross income in higher taxes if it means saving lives. Here's the two to contact today:

Representative Jo Bonner, a Republican from Alabama, supports giving you tax credits to pay for health insurance, but is against universal health care. That is, this "Republican" "Conservative" would like you to give your money to the federal government, and then the federal government would give it back to you, and you could then spend it in the "free market."

Call Jo Bonner at 202-225-4931, and explain to Jo that we don't have a free market for health insurance. A free market assumes that the seller and buyer have a choice, to get something or not get something, or to shop around.

But health care doesn't work that way. If I am having a heart attack, I will be taken to the nearest health care facility, period.

And, health care is not an option in the first place; I can't replace "health care" with something else, the way I can replace "buying a house" with "renting an apartment" or "living at home." I have to have health care, or I'll die young (like Nikki White, who tried to buy health insurance on the "free market," but couldn't, and so she died.)

I don't have a choice of what insurance company to go through, anymore: once I get sick, I have to stay with my health insurer, or I'll be denied coverage for any "pre-existing conditions."

Hopefully, Jo will get all that. But if he's as dense as most politicians, you could simplify the message by just saying: Jo, vote for a simple plan that (1) requires all insurers to provide coverage for pre-existing conditions, but lets them charge for it, and (2) lets anyone buy the same plan that you, as a Congressman, can buy, but means-test it so that they pay what they can afford.

But don't expect Jo to vote the right way anyway; he's already been bought off by the $276,000 he's taken from health professionals, and the $85,000 from insurance companies.

Then, there's "Senator" John Barrasso, a Republican from Wyoming. Tom is not just a Republican, but a doctor. (Ooohhh!) He apparently is a specialist in distorting the truth, suggesting in one press release that health care reform will result in "a government takeover of our health care system." As the Republicans always say: If at first you don't succeed, lie, and then shoot people in the face.

"Senator," nobody's saying the government should take over health care, and you know it. But the $503,000 you've taken in contributions from health professionals, added to the $96,000 you took from pharmaceutical and related industries, plus $80,000 from insurance interests, and $42,000 from hospitals, can buy a lot of lying, can't they? Too bad that money couldn't have been used to, say, buy health care for children.

Call John at 202-224-6441 and ask him if his Hippocratic oath ever bothers his conscience when he's voting down real reform. Then tell him Vote for the public option.

Want to Contact "Senator John" via the Web? Click here.

Want to email Representative Jo? Click here to go to his Facebook Page.