Fascinating development on September 3rd. I make no secret of my political leanings. I am a democrat and and am strongly in favor of Healthcare Reform. As a technologist, I understand the revolutionary impact that the Internet, with collaboration and communication applications have had on politics. I was still fascinated, though, to see a very simple thing in action. One of my colleagues posted a Twitter status requesting others to retweet or post a Facebook status. The message was simple:
No one should die because they cannot afford health care; no one should go broke because they get sick.
The poster was encouraged to leave this as the status on Twitter or Facebook all day. I was surprised both by how fast I saw similar updates on my Twitter feed and on my Facebook status feed. It was inspiring. I know that a) we got similar requests from many of our friends, and b) of course many of my friends are going to share my beliefs. Still, I was impressed.
Now, if we can just encourage all sides on this issue to dispense with the polemics and have a rational discussion and actually do something to help the 47M Americans who don’t have health care.