The healthcare battle is in full swing with the past month's news being dominated by shouting scenes of corporate-sponsored "movements" confronting healthcare reform supporters at town hall meetings coast to coast.

At the same time, the Obama administration has wavered on its commitment to the "public option" that was a central campaign promise and which is the backbone of effective national healthcare in every single one of what used to be called the advanced industrialized countries. (And don't get fooled by this co-op nonsense -- Lindsey Beyerstein's blog detailed why this new "compromise" is a doomed idea.)

As The Nation's Chris Hayes recently argued on The Rachel Maddow Show, this summer's ferocious rightwing organizing needs to be countered with more organizing. We here at Act Now! have put together some ways to do just that.

The single best thing you can do is to (politely) communicate with your elected representatives about healthcare. Tell them your personal stories. Make them understand why you support reform and why you think the stakes are so high. They need to hear from their constituents, and the people who make the effort to talk to them in person will be heard most loudly.

A recent poll showed that opponents of reform are more likely than supporters to protest, and this dynamic could kill critical reforms that are supported by a majority of Americans, and would save many lives. Is your representative having a town hall? Go to it. Bring friends. Organizing for America, the organizing arm of the Democratic National Committee, has a tool that allows you to find your congressperson's local office, or you can find representatives here and senators here. Especially important are members of the Blue Dog caucus in the House. Is your Rep a Blue Dog? Find out here.

Can't make it in person? Call and/or write your Congressional rep tool--and make it personal. Send us your stories as well--we'll post some of them on the site. Have you had a bad experience with your healthcare coverage? Do you have a Blue Dog representative or a "centrist" Senator who's waffling on supporting real reform? What do you know about them? Have you been to a healthcare event? Tell us about it.

One of the biggest problems that conservatives claim to have with providing real healthcare to all Americans is that it would be too expensive. With striking disingenuousness, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said of the national debt, "It's as if every single American gets up in the morning, walks over to the window, and tosses two dollars out into the wind, every day for the next 10 years." What McConnell failed to mention is why the deficit is so high -- eight years of a failed Republican Administration that was handed a budget surplus at its inception.

Moreover, that two dollars a day could be well-spent as Nation reader Monchel Pridget's "$2 a day for universal healthcare idea underlines. She suggested a $2-a-day drive for donations to healthcare organizing, and we're running with it.