Courtesy of Cenk Uygur and the folks over at Young Turks:

We had Rep. John Yarmuth (D-KY) on the show on Tuesday. He made it clear that the Democrats on the House will draw a line in the sand over the public option in the final healthcare reform bill.

He also gave an important insider’s look into what happened in the Democratic Caucus meeting last night on healthcare reform.

From the transcript:

YARMUTH: I really think it is. I mean you have three committees that have worked very, very hard on this package, Ways & Means, which I’m on, and Energy & Commerce, and Education & Labor. All three chairmen are strongly in favor of the public option, so is the Speaker of the House, all of the leadership is. Progressive Caucus with about 80 members said tonight at our caucus meeting that they would not support – they want to support a single payer option. They say they won’t vote for anything unless there’s a `robust public option’ as they put it, and even the Blue Dogs who represented tonight said they want to make sure that the public option is such that everybody is on a level playing field, but they did not express opposition to a public option. So I think it’s virtually impossible for anything to come out of the House without one, and again, what I – you probably had this repeated many, many times on your show, but I say it all the time: The option is – the alternative to a public option is trusting the insurance companies to fix the system, and that is something I don’t think anybody in this country is willing to do.

So, Congressman Yarmuth, will you take the pledge?

Many thanks to Ric Caric over at Red State Impressions for being such a team player! We always love having the support of the local blogs on this.

Whip It!