Contact Your Legislators

Instructions and Suggestions for Writing Letters
Find Your Legislator
General Information on Writing Letters

Instructions and Suggestions for Writing Letters to Congress Members

THANK YOU! Contacting your U.S. Senators and Representatives is important! The more people who write to their US Senators and Representatives about Certified Professional Midwives, the better! Please fax your letters to their Washington, DC offices. If you have any questions or need assistance please contact Sam Garman, Campaign Manager ().

HOW TO ADVOCATE FOR MIDWIVES TO CONGRESS IN FOUR EASY STEPS

1. Ask: Your letter can be quite brief, but please include the following crucial language in your letter; this is what you are asking your Senator or Representative to do:

"I am a constituent and I ask that [the name of your Representative or Senator] support efforts to improve the maternity care system by adding Certified Professional Midwives to the list of providers covered by Medicaid.”

Don’t know who your Representative or Senators are?  See #3 below!

2. Personalize the letter:  Share a brief personal detail if possible and relevant, for example: “Two of my children were born at home attended by Certified Professional Midwives. I believe all women regardless of their income should have access to the safe, high-quality, cost-effective care provided by Certified Professional Midwives.” OR: “This measure would decrease costs (short term and long term) if even a few women on Medicaid chose Certified Professional Midwives for their maternity care, and we need all the high quality cost-savings measures we can find for health care reform!”

If you would like to add further information about CPMs please utilize the talking points in the handouts “Midwives and Mothers in Action: Improve Maternity Care Quality by Expanding Patient Choice” and the CPM FAQ sheet .


3. Fax your letter to your Senator or Representative’s Washington, D.C., office (if you can't fax then call or e-mail them instead).  You can find fax numbers and other contact info for your Senators at www.senate.gov and your Representative at www.house.gov.

These web sites will help you find the individual web sites for your Representatives and Senators.  The individual web sites will have other contact information as well, including phone numbers and e-mail. Please do NOT use regular US mail to send letters to DC offices, because they will not be received for many weeks due to security measures.  Faxed letters and e-mails to the Washington, D.C. office will help us the most right now, but we would be so grateful for any pro-midwife communication with your legislator you feel able to make!  If you cannot send a fax or e-mail, phone calls to DC offices or mail to local district offices are the next best.  What is most important is communicating with your Senators and Representative!

4. Send the MAMA Campaign a copy of your letter. Email it to or FAX to or mail to MAMA Campaign c/o NACPM, 243 Banning Road, Putney VT 05346

Note: If your Senator or Representative’s office would like more information about our efforts to pursue this important Medicaid improvement, they may contact Mary Lawlor with the National Association of Certified Professional Midwives at or on her cell phone at . She and other Campaign members will be in D.C. during the next few weeks and may be available to meet with your Senator or Representative or his/her staff.

 

Sample Letter

Click to view the sample letters,

 

Find Your Legislator:

U.S. House of Representatives - www.house.gov
Find/Write Your Representative at: www.house.gov/writerep
U.S. Capitol Switchboard:

U.S. Senate - www.senate.gov
Find/Write Your Senator at: www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
U.S. Capitol Switchboard:

Congressional Committees Addressing Health Care Reform
House Education & Labor - http://edworkforce.house.gov
House Energy & Commerce - http://energycommerce.house.gov
House Ways & Means - http://waysandmeans.house.gov
Senate Finance - http://finance.senate.gov
Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions - http://help.senate.gov

White House - www.whitehouse.gov

Writing Letters

Personally written letters are still one of the most effective means of communication with elected officials. Email campaigns are easy and efficient, but they are becoming ubiquitous and are a bit impersonal. The MAMA Campaign certainly will employ email campaigns at strategic moments, but those personally hand written letters are priceless. For a campaign like the MAMA campaign when we have a small but very vocal passionate constituency, the personal touch of personally written letters (by hand is great if possible) has a lot of impact. See the

Letters are best faxed to Washington, DC offices. To find your congress members fax number, visit www.house.gov and www.senate.gov; once on these homepages, click on the search tool in the upper corners of the pages to find your own U.S. Senator or Representatives contact information.

with the campaign to receive news and action alerts and we will send you targeted information about which officials really need those letters and what key points we suggest you make when writing your letters.