At last. Health Care Reform has finally gone viral via this simple yet meaningful sentence: "No one should die because they cannot afford health care, and no one should go broke because they get sick. If you agree, please post this as your status for the rest of the day."
The meme first cropped up last night on Facebook and by mid-morning had jumped to Twitter and Youtube. Buzz names Scrubs' actor Zach Braff as being the originator of this trend.
It's been a while since U.S. politics took the viral center stage -- not since Obama's inauguration, when 1.8 million Obama-related Facebook Status Updates were logged during the CNN broadcast. In fact, social media has surprisingly lagged behind in the Health Care debate, with only the occasional email campaign urging readers to contact their representatives. Considering the sweeping power of social media to both educate and persuade, it's almost shocking there's been nada till now. Shame on us -- Web 2.0 was supposed to be the era of true citizen journalism. If there ever was a time to use social media tools to speak out, it's now. Zach Braff or whoever launched this virtual Hail Mary, thank you.