How to Write a Letter to the Editor for the 2025 Reintroduction
Why write a Letter-to-the-Editor (LTE)?
- Representatives and Senators closely monitor their press hits.
- LTEs help newspaper editors gauge what is important to their readers, regardless of whether a letter gets published.
- People like to know what others in their community are thinking about.
- LTEs are short, easy to write, and anyone can write them!
Before you begin writing
- Look up the submission guidelines for papers you’re targeting.
- Generally, you can find this information listed in the opinion section under “write a letter to the editor.”
- For an online LTE, you enter required fields into the form including name, home address, phone number, email address, city and letter. It is strongly recommended that you first write your document in a word processing software, edit and proofread accordingly, then paste into the allotted space.
- A list of links to the submission guidelines for many local papers can be found here.
Tips for writing:
- Be sure to name-drop your legislators and whether they’ve signed onto the Medicare for All Act in the House or Senate (if they have, praise their leadership)! Their offices keep an eye on local press religiously and this will add that extra pressure you need!
- Look into recent (no more than a week old) articles published by the paper relating to healthcare. You can reference them in your letter and this will increase your chances of being published.
- Watch the word count – most papers have strict limits on LTE word counts.
- Keep in mind that many readers do not have background knowledge of the Medicare for All bill, so avoid jargon and abbreviation.
- If you are an expert (such as a healthcare provider or medical student), be sure to include that information.
Talking points on Medicare for All
Letters to the Editor are short and you won’t have time to cover everything. Here are a few talking points and suggestions for statistics that you can choose from.
What is Medicare for All?
- Medicare for All is legislation to fix our broken healthcare system by finally allowing everyone in the U.S. to have guaranteed access to care throughout their lives.
- Medicare for All would improve Medicare and expand it to everyone in the U.S.
How will Medicare for All benefit your area?
- Delays and denials of needed medical care by greedy insurance companies are a feature, not a bug, of the current health care system in the U.S.. Medicare for All will stop this by covering all medically necessary care and giving patients the freedom to choose their doctor.
- Medicare for All will remove barriers to receiving health care guaranteeing health care for everyone, regardless of things like employment, the state you reside in, your age and marital status.
- End medical bankruptcy and save money for American families by eliminating insurance premiums and deductibles.
- Cut financial waste currently exacerbated by greedy, profit-seeking insurance companies.
- End Pharma profiteering and guarantee medications for all who need them.
- Stop hospital closures, which now are set to increase due to the policy choices of the Trump administration.
The Trump administration vs. Medicare for All
- The Trump administration is seeking to further privatize Medicare. Medicare for All would protect the program by adding hundreds of millions more Americans to the program, increasing the power of enrollees.
- The Trump administration is trying to cut Medicare and the ACA, threatening access to health care for tens of millions.
Statistics to choose from
- You can find the uninsured rate for your municipality or state through the U.S. Census QuickFacts page.
- A 2024 Kaiser Foundation survey found that half of all Americans considered healthcare difficult to pay for, with 1 in 4 households reporting a family member who struggled to pay a bill in the last 12 months.
- People in the U.S. are statistically sicker than residents of peer nations with functioning healthcare systems.