Last month, we received a four-page color flyer -- paid for by taxpayers -- in which Capito claimed that she was working to "protect" and "strengthen" Medicare.

Both can't be true.

Either Capito voted for legislation that would end Medicare -- as the Journal claims -- or she is working to protect and strengthen it.

We have called on Congresswoman Capito to debate the issue. She has not responded.

Medicare is a system of public insurance for citizens 65 and older.

The legislation Capito voted for would essentially end the public system of Medicare by privatizing it.

It would give seniors $15,000 to try and buy health insurance from private health insurance corporations.

This would essentially end Medicare as we know it.

Instead of privatizing Medicare -- as Capito voted to do -- we need a single payer system. Everybody in. Nobody out.

Right now, 45,000 Americans die every year from lack of health insurance.

With single payer, that number would be driven down to zero.

I have a friend here in Morgan County who is 63 years old. He's a hard working man. He was diagnosed last month with an aortic aneurysm. He has no insurance.

His doctor told him that the operation to fix his condition would cost about $150,000.

He told his doctor he couldn't afford it. He believes his only option is to wait two years until he is eligible for Medicare.

If he dies in the interim, he will join the 45,000 Americans who die every year from lack of health insurance.

If we had a Canadian style single payer system, my friend would have had the operation by now.

The likes of Congresswoman Capito are contemptuous of my friend and those like him.

Instead of working for a single payer system, Capito works to chip away our public institutions -- our commonwealth.

By getting rid of the private health insurance corporations, a single payer system would save $400 billion a year in administrative costs.

As the St. Louis Post Dispatch put it in an editorial last week -- if America is truly serious about dealing with its deficit problem, there is a fairly simple solution -- take the for-profit corporations out of the health-care loop and enact a single payer plan.

Because of Congresswoman Capito's contempt of the people of her district, we've urging people to sign a petition calling on her to resign her office.

We've taken out billboards, are running radio ads, and I personally am running 10 miles in each of the 18 counties in her district calling attention to her contempt for the commonwealth of this country.

Capito has not tweeted dirty pictures of herself on the Internet.

But she has violated her public trust by voting to end Medicare -- and then lied about it.