Not surprisingly, Senator Kay Hagan is still unable to convince herself that a public option– which 76% of the American people support– should be a part of health care reform:
Although U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan told community activists at a health-care rally Thursday that she agrees with the need to reform health care, she isn’t ready to support President Barack Obama’s call for a public health-care option.
Hagan is taking heat from constituents, and MoveOn has announced it will run ads against the Senator in DC and North Carolina. But as Jane pointed out earlier:
The chances that the administration will step in and pressure centrists to support a strong public plan in conference are about zero. In fact, I’d bet just about everything I own that the opposite will happen — in order to lure the centrists, they’ll put the screws to progressives just like they did on the supplemental to cave and pass something that will make Blue Cross and Kay Hagan happy.
The time to act is now. We need 40 Democrats to commit to voting down anything that comes out of conference that doesn’t have a public plan which is 1) available nationwide, 2) on day one and 3) answerable to Congress and the voters.
Use Our Citizen Whip Count Tool
Call your Representatives and ask them to take the pledge to vote against any bill that lacks a public option available to everyone on day one, and is answerable to Congress and the voters.
8 Comments
Spotlight
Support this site!
Subscribe to the newsletter
Advertise on Firedoglake
Send
us your tips
Make us your homepage
About FDL Action
Advanced search
Tweet this petition demanding Kay Hagan support the public health care option:
http://act.ly/45
Please help — go over precisely what, “responsible to the voters and Congress” means again, please.
From the article linked above:
Someone is clearly (and sadly) mistaken.
I think the Senate is going to be a hard nut to crack on this one. Those coming up for re-election in 2012 and 2014 are gonna take the money over the constituents methinks.
Kay Hagan has a lot of nerve. she got $2 million from progressive donors (ActBlue, MoveOn), and 13K from Blue Cross, but now she shows us the giant middle finger. I will contribute to whoever is willing to challenge her in a primary.
3/09
FamiliesUSA pdf
North Carolina’s number of uninsured increased at one of the fastest rates in the nation
1 in 3 North Carolinians without coverage
70% of Latinos uninsured
42% of African Americans
Working Families make up 79% of the state’s uninsured
She’s an asshole.
Like that hair style, Marisa.
i have an ad on the side here. You know. “1 rule to obey” With a “before/after” picture. You can’t tell me that’s the same chick.
Someone should ask Kay Hagan if she knows that with the amount of money that all Americans and their state and federal governments spend on health care each year, which is roughly $4.2 trillion, we could pay for a single payer universal health care system and take the balance and pay off the national debt in ten years. Thereby satisfying the need for affordable, high quality universal health care and taking the enormous Bush-Cheney deficits off the backs of countless generations of young Americans, and giving government the financial flexibility to ensure the solvency of Social Security and Medicare for generations to come.
Then just ask her whether she would support such a two-pronged plan. The answer will be predictable, because Hagan is a predictable tool of corporate interests even in her first year. But it will be illuminating for her constituents to understand that she didn’t run for the US Senate to actually solve any hard problems. She’s just there for the easy votes and the boisterous happy hours.
These blue do Democrats are all alike. They create problems, or acquiesce to their Republican brethren who create enormous problems, like the deficit, and unaffordable health care with 40 million uninsured Americans, and 10% unemployment in the wake of the train wreck left behind by their “conservative” fiscal policies, and then throw their hands up in the air and say it will just have to fix itself by magic.
Screw the gutless Kay Hagan and every other blue dog Democrat in the US Senate. Let’s recall those who we can and support real Democrats, and Independents and moderate Republicans in their place. Let’s start the ball rolling now and stop giving one thin diem to her and all the others. Let them live on the crumbs the corporate PACs throw them. They are all idiots. Screw them all.