Today, SEIU and more than 750 national and state-based organizations sent an open letter to the White House and Congress urging a strengthening and expansion of affordability and coverage provisions in the final health care bill.

As the White House and Congressional leaders work to merge the House and Senate language into a single bill, today's letter represents a clear signal to fix affordability. The fact that more than 750 disparate groups, ranging from AARP and Consumers Union to the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, can agree on policy language on affordability and coverage is not insignificant. There's no denying that Americans and these many groups that represent them expect Congress to deliver on affordable health care.

What are these groups asking for? It's simple: The two bills should be combined, preserving the House's low and moderate-income provisions and the Senate's middle-income provisions. This way, both low and moderate-income families have access to affordable health insurance.

Today's open letter is the latest in a growing chorus on Capitol Hill and across the nation to address affordability. And already, many in Congress understand the importance of solving this problem.

Rep Raul Grijalva, in December, noted in a press release,

"Government subsidies must be sufficient for lower-and middle-income families and individuals. No reform can be effective if it is paid for out of the millions of nearly empty pockets we are now trying to protect from further risk."

Even moderate Democrat Kent Conrad (D-SD) acknowledged,

"At the end of the day, when all of us go home, what we hear about is the ever-increasing, ever-escalating costs."

Members of Congress seem keenly aware that if they fail to make health care more affordable for their constituents, they could face angry voters at home. "You need to be able to say every American will get affordable coverage. That's fundamental, and it needs to be in the final bill," said Sen. Ben Cardin in the Frederick-News Post on Christmas Day.

The New York Times editorial on December 26, 2009 echoes these sentiments:

"Under the more generous House bill, low-income people would pay substantially less and get better benefits than under the Senate bill. The House bill has far better subsidies to help lower-income Americans with premiums and cost-sharing. The Senate bill offers better subsidies for middle-income people. House staffers calculate that a family of four earning $33,000 a year would pay $1,521 in premiums under the Senate bill, which is $530 more than under the House bill. The same family would be exposed to as much as $4,100 in cost-sharing under the Senate bill, which is $3,100 more than under the House bill. Affordability is probably the most critical issue in winning popular support. The Senate needs to agree to more subsidies."

And according to reports, the White House agrees. Today's Wall Street Journal reports that "the president would support the House effort to make subsidies more generous, though the official didn't give details."

For the sake of our country, for the sake of our health care system, and for the sake of winning your constituents' confidence in 2010 and beyond - come on Congress, let's deliver on affordable health care for Americans.

» See the open letter with all signers here: http://action.seiu.org/letter