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08 October, 2009

Live Abroad? Senator Patty Murray, at least, seems to Care Less!

Normally, I don't get too politically involved. But, I figured what the hell?

I just received an email newsletter from my Senator, Patty Murray of Washington State. The newsletter was focused on health care and at the bottom solicited my comments. So, since health care is a topic of interest to me and most other folks, I decided I'd comment.

Hah! Easier said than done.


TO COMMENT: Please send an email to: http://murray.senate.gov/email
If you follow the link above, you get a email page that has this information:
Prefix          
First Name    
Last Name        
Address       
Address         
City          
State       
Zip        
Phone        
Email                   
Topic        
Please type the subject of your message: 
Your message:

So, the first few boxes are no big deal, salutation, first and last name, your address...
Whoops, that's where things begin to go to hell in a hand basket.
State - Let's see now, what state do I live in? Corozal District (not included on the drop down list).
Zip - Let's see, what's our zip down here in Belize? Oh, that's right. We don't use zip or any other postal codes down here.
 All the rest of the items I can massage so they work, including my message.

There's nowhere on Miss Patty's website that I can see that would allow me as an Expat living in a foreign country, although I am still a constituent of hers, to provide input to her and her staff in order for me to tell her as a consituent, what I think about a particular issue - in this case, Health Care.

I suspect, although I haven't checked any other legislative web sites, that they are all pretty much the same.

I did  manage to cobble together an email and used her system to send it. I wrote out the rest of my Belize address in the City box, since it allowed me to add lots of letters and I put in 5-zeros in the Zip box.

I did address my problems with existing health care and why I dumped it in favor of international health insurance.

I did also address my concerns with her apparent lack of concern for any constituent who may live somewhat outside of the normal US of A address scheme.

It'll be interesting to see if my email got to her office and if I get any sort of response.

Not holding my breath,
Dave

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