We’ve received quite a few letters over the past few weeks regarding President Barack Obama’s plan for health-care reform now being debated in Congress. Both sides have been “rallying the troops” and arming them with talking points. So how are the two sides doing?

In terms of sheer volume, the letters in favor of legislative reform outweigh those opposed. However, many of these pro-reform letters are form letters and/or letters generated by Web sites and therefore will not be published. Several local chapters of the League of Women Voters sent us identical letters advocating “single-payer, expanded and improved Medicare for all,” although one chapter did take the time to state a watered-down version of the League’s position in their own words, thereby making the letter publishable. (Once again, I marvel at the fact that someone can send us a mass-distributed pre-written letter and not realize that others will do the same.) The Web-generated letters (that is, sent via a Web site that allows one to cut-and-paste – or write their own words – into a form that is automatically sent to one’s local newspaper, legislators, etc. based on ZIP code, while making it look like the letter came from the writer’s e-mail address) vary in quality – everything from wooden-sounding recitation of the legislation’s benefits, to lengthy descriptions of the writer’s personal struggles with the health-care system, to the three-sentence “WE CAN’T WAIT! We need reform NOW! PLEASE VOTE FOR THIS BILL!” – type letters signed with names like “Mr. Susan Jones” because apparently the Web site involved automatically generates an honorific that defaults to “Mr.” if the writer doesn’t choose. (And I’m still trying to track down this site! If anyone out there can identify it, drop me a line, please.)

For the most part, those letters on the opposing side tend to be from our “regulars,” and although the talking points are as predictable as those coming from the “pro” side, at least the writers are putting them into their own words, and as regulars, I trust that they are, in fact, readers of this newspaper and/or Web site. (The people using those Web-generated sites don’t even need to know the name of our paper; they just enter their ZIP and click.) Of course, this means that the letters we actually publish on this issue are skewed toward the “anti” side; hopefully, any “pros” reading this will decide to write some original letters and send them to us directly so that we can present both sides of the argument.

The “antis,” however, have recently indulged in a letter-writing campaign of their own, bombarding our Rockland office with letters angrily protesting that local members of Congress have not scheduled any “Town Hall” meetings there to discuss the health-care issue. Considering that recent Town Hall meeting elsewhere have been disrupted by protests organized by industry-funded groups such as Americans for Prosperity, one can certainly wonder about the spontaneity of these letters as well.

In any case, expect to see much more on this topic on our Editorial Page and online in the coming weeks.