Fighting the Mobs: Big, supportive turnout critical for Costa 'town hall' tomorrow

UPDATE: According to the Associate Dean of UCSF Fresno, this event has been canceled. Stay tuned to our Action Blog for more information.

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With Congress home for their summer recess, many Senators and Representatives are holding 'town hall' meetings on the topic of healthcare reform.

But as has been widely reported, many of these meetings are being disrupted by ill-informed 'mobs' shouting down any notion of responsible healthcare reform, and trying to keep any sort of reasoned debate from actually occurring. Here's one example, as broadcast on MSNBC's Rachel Maddow show

Representative Jim Costa has scheduled a healthcare town hall meeting scheduled 9-11 a.m. tomorrow, Aug. 7, at UCSF Fresno, 155 N. Fresno St. (Not at Fresno State, as had been previously announced.)

To counter the possibility of such an occurrence at Rep. Costa's town hall, we need as many healthcare-reform supporters as possible to attend.

To attend, you must RSVP by sending an e-mail message to charris@fresno.ucsf.edu

From Linda Leu, the coordinator from Health Access who spoke at our V4CF meeting Aug. 4:

We really need to turn out as many health reform supporters as possible at the UCSF Health Reform Meeting Friday morning because Rep. Costa will be there to “hear comments”. As we discussed at our meeting, the opposition is out in full force and we need to be there to deliver the message that his constituents need and want health reform!

The opposition will try to get there early, they will try to sit in the front, and they will try to make this discussion about euthanizing seniors, illegal immigrants, and abortions. We must be there too because we know that this is really about the 48 million Americans that will benefit from health reform. In Congressional District 20 alone, up to 9,700 small businesses could receive tax credits to provide coverage to their employees; 4,200 seniors would avoid the donut hole in Medicare Part D; 1,180 families could escape bankruptcy each year due to unaffordable health care costs; health care providers would receive payment for $123 million in uncompensated care each year; and 267,000 uninsured individuals would gain access to high-quality, affordable health insurance.

Please bring as many people as possible to attend the event and to encourage Congressman Costa to support the needs of his district.

For more information about the rally including location details, download this promotional flyer. We hope to see you there!

UPDATE: Our friend Dillon Savory has reported that no one has yet been able to confirm whether or not Rep. Costa will actually attend the meeting. Dillon reports he is supposed to get more information this afternoon, so please stay tuned for an update.