UPDATE: The chat is over. You can read the archive in our comments.
Democratic Congressman Jerry Nadler will be joining us at 2pm Eastern in the comments for a live chat with you guys in the comment thread on this very post. As we've done before, we invited the congressman to write us a post before the chat, talking about any issues he's particularly focusing on at the moment, in order to give you a bit more fodder for the live chat.
You can certainly ask the congressman about those issues, but also feel free to ask him about anything else that comes to mind as well. He should be with us about a half an hour. Feel free to post questions now, in the comments to this post, and the congressman can get to them when he arrives, or just join us live at 2pm Eastern and jump into the comments then.
Congressman Jerrold Nadler
Opening Post
AMERICAblog, Liveblogging
Monday, September 21, 2009
Thank you to the bloggers and readers of America blog for inviting me to chat with you and answer questions today, at 2:00pm Eastern Time. I’m looking forward to hearing your feedback on the issues of greatest import to you and doing my best to respond.
There are two topics in particular that are on my mind at this moment.
Last week, Congressmembers Baldwin, Polis and I introduced the Respect for Marriage Act, legislation that would repeal the overtly discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act in its entirety. This bill was the product of many months of strategizing and planning with LGBT and Civil Rights advocates and we have garnered a phenomenal amount of support already across the country and in the House of Representatives, with 94 co-sponsors to date. This movement for marriage equality, which began long ago among LGBT leaders and activists, is now beginning in earnest on the federal legislative front. Though the task ahead is not easy, I feel confident that this bill WILL pass, and we must now turn to the work of making that happen.
Also paramount on my mind, and on the minds of millions of Americans, is the topic of health insurance reform. We have all participated or watched as this debate has intensified and as various proposals by the President and Congress have appeared, some good, some excellent, and some downright bad. Today, we are at the moment of truth. Greatly divergent bills have been introduced in the two houses of Congress and the fight to reconcile them is underway. I am, and have always been, committed to fighting for the bottom-line, common-sense provisions that the President and the American people have asked for, including: coverage for everyone, reasonable minimum standards of coverage for all policies, an end to policy rescissions due to illness, no barrier to coverage on account of pre-existing conditions, and a strong public option to keep prices down and instill healthy competition into the insurance marketplace.
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