The eagle eyed (or more accurately eagle eared) Sekhnet had a good comment on the letter to the A.G.   I need a more dramatic, attention grabbing opening sentence.   One must not bury the lede.   Can’t make a sale without a good pitch, and a good windup is essential to ze nasty break on zat strikeout pitch.

The present draft begins with this bland statement (note passive voice use, it’s not like it was written by me, he said):

I am writing to give you an on-the-ground view of the stressful health care situation for hundreds of thousands of us in New York State.

Admittedly, not much there to grab you.

My more fiery, overwrought first draft, months back, opened:

I am writing to alert you to a massive consumer protection failure in New York State, regarding denials of purchased health care, and to urge your office to investigate this unchecked fraud.

There might be something there… but not enough.

I am writing to alert you to the scope of the healthcare crisis for tens of thousands of New Yorkers…  

Sekhnet dictates (with some on the fly revisions):

I am appealing to you for assistance on behalf of many thousands of New Yorkers placed in an untenable position regarding their healthcare.   

This also needs to get worked in early on, I suppose:

As frustrating as my medical insurance ordeals have been, I have the benefits of fluency in English, computer literacy, legal skills.  I cannot imagine the life-shortening stress that is inflicted on the elderly and other vulnerable New Yorkers unable to get so much as a hearing for often unappealable denials of health care.

On the other hand, since this is the holiest day of my great-grandfather’s religion, and a fasting day, at that,  I’d better wrap this up and get ready to bring these fruits I’ve been slicing and the other things we’ve been preparing up to our gathering to break the fast.   Once it gets dark.  That first drink of orange juice never tastes better.