Today, over a million people marched on Washington.

Five hundred people were physically in DC. They met Melanie’s March – a group of health insurance company abuse survivors who walked for eight days and 135 miles from Philadelphia, PA to the nation’s capitol in honor of Melanie Shouse, an Obama volunteer and health care activist who died because she didn’t have affordable health care – at Union Station and walked the last leg together to Capitol Hill.

We arrived at Dirksen Senate Office Building for a rally with Majority Leader Reid, among others:

And we laid carnations symbolizing every life lost because we don’t have health reform over the course of the eight day march – one thousand in all.

Inside the halls of power, we heard from Senators Reid, Dodd, Harkin, Casey, and Sherrod Brown, Representative Andrews, SEIU President Andy Stern, Families USA head Ron Pollack, and more.

These Senators and Representatives also heard directly from insurance company abuse survivors. People like Regina Holliday, who’s husband, dying of cancer, was kicked out of hospital after hospital because their insurance company wouldn’t cover his care. Or Marcus Grimes, who’s blind because he couldn’t pay the $3,000 it would have taken to save his eyesight and he didn’t have coverage. And they heard from Steve Hart, Melanie Shouse’s life partner, who said, "The worst part about losing Melanie was that she would be here today if health care in this country was fixed."

These people sent the message Senator Reid directly: It’s time to listen to the people and not the insurance companies. It’s time to get health reform done right.

Senator Reid, accepting 30,000 condolences collected upon Melanie Shouse’s death, said he would take the names and messages with him to the White House summit on health reform tomorrow. And he told the crowd that we’re going to get reform done.

While we were marching, one million people were backing us up. Led by MoveOn.org, the virtual march on DC has succeeded in sending over 1 million messages to Congress since 8 am this morning, tying up phone lines and fax machines all over Capitol Hill. And the calls and faxes keep coming in!

Today, the people marched. It’s time for the leadership and Congress to deliver.

(also posted at the NOW! blog)

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