We need to tell our representatives and senators no public plan in the legislation no money and no vote at the polls in 2010 .

Yahoo! Good work, Jane!

Is that sort of spine a contagious thing in DC?
We can hope and call.

nice. no word on chaka fattah.

keith ellison is also a cosponsor of hr 676 – conyer’s single payer universal healthCARE bill. in fact, he signed on as a cosponsor back in january, the same day the bill was introduced.

keith ellison rocks!

OT RIP Farrah Fawcett

Anyone living in Ellison’s district?

What’s that feel like?

I’m jealous.

Dasm!! I guess they didn’t get a chance to marry. That sucks.

Yes, he does!

His district is Minneapolis and the inner-ring ‘burbs. He’s a fabulous representative — knows his CD inside and out.

Outstanding! Now, if only the White House would come out and second this…

Wonder if she and Ryan got married.

Seriously? That’s too bad. She was one of my first big childhood crushes.

As someone was just reminding me, the public option Congress is talking about is not single payer universal healthcare or a substitute for it. In fact, we have no idea even what their public option or options mean at this point. They could be awful, a sham.

I wish that Keith Ellison would tell everyone that we have one good public option available, that has already been thoroughly examined and vetted, and it is called single payer.

No He asked she said yes but was not well enough to go through with it

Keith Ellison is a soothing antidote to another Minneapolis Congress person, who shall remain nameless. I’m not in his district, but I still take pride in the fact that he represents my state.

Gotta love that clear language for a strong message!

It’s a bit of an oversight.

Och. That’s very sad. I’ve only been following the headlines and not the details. I like Farrah, Ryan not so much but he was there for her. big big props for that. RIP Farrah.

You can bet that FuxGnus will figure out a way to chop it up so it sounds like he’s all for mandated private insurance coverage.

Well, we know he’s on board per the thingy Selise describes at comment 5. but you are saying he should have been saying the actual words, not simply implying what he meant by public option, yes? IOW, we need to be clear on what is indicated by “public option”?

Oh gee, they are not THAT bad. /s.

Guaranteed they will call him out for his lack of bipartisanship, unwillingness to compromise (sell us out) and all that crap.

Jane has an all new post up on the front page: “Sanford’s “Maria” Identified”

please, please tell me that the mandate is not still on the table?

I have no idea. I’ve not seen anything that resembles any sort of legislation. I’m also hard pressed to believe that a workable reform bill could be drafted by these bozos since it was announced. If they have legislation they’re working on it came from the insurance companies with little or no input from anybody else.

Excellent.

Hugh, if you’re interested in some of the messaging nuances within and around the Congressional Progressive Caucus, where Ellison has been a point person on health reform discussions, you may want to kick back with a glass of single-malt and slog through the post I wrote two days ago addressing CPC “message discipline.” Be sure to check the comment thread, though, where I relate some feedback I received from Darcy Burner.

Also, note that the CPC is hardly monolithically “message disciplined,” as witness this great exchange the other day between Dennis the K and Jacob Hacker.

Good news:
http://www.rollcall.com/issues…..r_friendly

It seems there’s a group of them up on the hill with Jackson-Lee saying ”join the President” and ”look at the polls.”

”The intraparty groups demanded a national Medicare-like public insurance option for everyone that would compete with private insurers …”

Pretty much slapping Harry Reid around with his ”let the process work” and ”don’t back yourself into a corner” stand.

Looks like progress to me.

I’ll try a link.
Liberals Draw Hard Line on Health Reform

I’m officially link challenged on this computer …

It’s up at RollCall …

http://www.rollcall.com/issues/54_152…..r_friendly

Since the weasel response from members contacted via Jane’s whipping tool seems to be “I don’t know what I’ll do until I see an actual piece of legislation,” Ellison’s action provides us with a handy “suggestion” of what they could do in advance of that “piece of legislation” [that they don’t read and then vote on with lobbyists standing at their sides].

Thanks for the link. I’m glad to see these group standing up, calling a press conference, getting coverage. God knows Charlie Gibson, Diane Sawyer and all of the MSM acts as though “public option” is lying in the gutter by the side of the road, with everyone ignoring it as they whiz by.

Thanks, have bookmarked it.

Someday there will be someone who dies of cancer and becomes “the last person to die of cancer”. I hope that day is soon.

On mandates:

Do we really want to bother employers with a mandate to insure all their employees?

We know some can’t handle it and others spend so much on it that it hurts their businesses (re car companies). Maybe we shouldn’t force them to provide more customers to insurers who want to be free to insure whomever they please.

Maybe the mandates aren’t a good idea.

However, enabling more people to become insured through the Exchange and a public option seems like a winner. Seems like it would be a bit simpler too.