Did you miss us? We apologize for a longer-than-usual absence, but there was a family medical emergency involving coronary intensive care that showed us all too dramatically (as though we didn’t already appreciate it) the life-or-death urgency of access to good health care. (Mom is recovering now, thank God.)

We’ve also been busy again with Organizing for America health care phone banks. On Thursday night some two or three dozen volunteers gathered in an apartment in Manhattan’s Gramercy Park to phone voters and urge them to call Congressman Scott Murphy in New York’s 20th congressional district to urge him to reverse his November “Nay” and vote for the health reform bill on Sunday. Our group made 1,446 phone calls, spoke to 417 people,  and got 232 to commit to calling Congressman Murphy. Rep. Murphy has now announced that he will vote for the health bill. (See our previous post “Scenes from a Health Reform Phone Bank.”) One woman we spoke to said she had already called the congressman once; was it okay to call again?

We are also calling Louisiana congressman (and potential senator?) Charlie Melancon (202-225-4031) to urge him to vote for the health reform bill. His web site gives no indication of how he will vote, though his comment on the Feb. 25 health care summit is not encouraging:

Louisianians are tired of the same old dig-in-your-heels partisanship that we saw from both sides at today’s health care summit. We need more cooperation in Washington and less political posturing. We need leaders who will work together in good faith to solve the problems middle class families are facing. We didn’t see that today.

So, what does Melancon propose to do? Vote no? Please join us in calling his Washington office at (202) 225-4031 or faxing him at (202) 226-3944 to urge Charlie Melancon—who we hope will defeat David Vitter in the upcoming race for the U.S. Senate—to vote for the health reform bill on Sunday.

Now we’re off with cell phone in hand to McGee’s Pub in Manhattan for a “megabank” phoning marathon with other Organizing for America volunteers. Wish us luck! We wish you luck. (And, yes, we missed you, too.)