No Robust Public Option – No Reelection – No Kidding!

Progressive Presser from this afternooon

Some thank you calls are in order. And thank YOU, Jane!

If the DLC/Blue Dogs/Clinton democrat senators and house members rule the day, it will be the legacy of the Clintons. Tina Brown, ad absurdam, now suggests that the Clintons should get us a public option by putting the leash on the Blue Dogs, as if the Clintons were ever on the side of progessive health reform. This is going to come down to not letting Red States and Evan ( I don’t know how I ever got throuh law school) Bayh rule the day

Good!

How did the progressives get jammed? Weren’t they the ones standing up to the Blue Dogs?

Excellent!

I’m pleasantly surprised.

wo0t!

Great work, Jane! This likely would not have happened without your efforts.

what a treat to be able to call all of them and commend them for their unity and leadership

bet they would love more calls :D

Jane, you were sayin in an earlier post that “nothing like this has ever happened”. What do you mean by that? that the progressives have never drawn a line in the sand before? just curious. it almost seems like we’re starting to see parliamentary parties/factions forming within the two parties.

I think the entire Democratic caucus should stand firm together and pull a “Bushie” and tell the Blue Dogs, “You’re either with us, or you’re with the Republicans; you’re either Democrats, or you’re Republicans.”

Personally, I think the Blue Dogs are Republicans. We should kick them to the curb, cut our losses, and rebuild the Party without them while the Republicans are still weak and in the rebuilding process themselves.

If we don’t do this, then vote after vote, year after year, we can expect the Blue Dogs will continue to blackmail the Democratic Party and the 10s of 1,000,000s of voters they (the party) represents.

Let’s highlight the fact that not all 53 Blue Dogs are siding with the corporate shills in the Energy and Commerce Committee.

We must start undercutting the idea that the Blue Dogs can stop the bill in the House. We need only 14 Blue Dogs to commit to voting for a strong public option to break this.

And we also need to watch out for any corporate shills in the New Democrat Caucus.

Why are negotiated rates in a public option suddenly a “Blue Dog” compromise? This is how the public option was set up in the Senate HELP bill, largely written by Sen. Kennedy.

So 53 progressives kill the reform bill – then what? “Start over”? Tell thousands of people with pre-existing conditions that they have to continue being denied coverage because some progressives want a “stronger” public option?

Thank you, Jane, for all your hard work! I have an acquaintance who is an older woman (80)who wrote a letter to everyone she knows about her attempts to keep the elderly’s rights intact in the bill (I mean, according to Nader, Obama or Rahm promised the pharmaceutical companies that the government would NOT try to negotiate pill prices and where else would all the cuts in Medicare come from – from rate paid to hospitals and physicians, which would in turn lead to fewer doctors willing to accept Medicare – if I have this wrong, please please correct me) http://www.independentpolitica…..hypocrisy/
I’d like to include a bit of her letter here because it is interesting to hear her viewpoint AND how she has been treated on her calls to congress (one office hung up on her because she was not a constituent)

Disbelief reigns in me at this time. I am looking to unite people
> against our so-called Representatives and Senators, who declare they
> are working for us. I think not!
>
> Between letters, Tv news, newspapers, and rumors, I decided to find
> out for myself what is the truth.
>
> Here is my report: I decided to call every Representative and Senator
> that represent our nation. Still working on that. My first few calls
> were met with very polite people answering the Senators phones, when I
> asked about the National Health Care system they knew nothing about
> it. I asked if the Senator knew (doubting here they read all 1018
> pages) and was assured they knew everything, they just have not
> communicated anything to their staff. Finally, I reach another
> Senator’s office and his staff was very understanding about my
> concerns, but again they knew nothing about the bill, but assured me
> the Senator knew. I have to tell you about this time, I’m thinking,
> yeah, sure he does! Then she said, write this number down in case we
> get disconnected you can call them yourself, I’m going to transfer you
> to The Senate Finance Committee, they can answer your questions.
> Really, I think, help is on the way!
>
> Unknown to me at this time her Senator is head of the Committee. I
> ask about care for those at age 75 and above, will they be able to
> have advance cancer treatment, knee replacement, hip replacement,
> advanced physical therapy, stints, kidney dialysis etc, my list was
> long. Some cancer treatment, but the rest was almost or
> non-existent.
>
> “What” I said, “listen I had chemo for 20 months, no one would do a
> hip replacement for me, my bones scraped and wore down one inch in two
> years with unimaginable pain, no pain pill could touch, in fact they
> all made me sick, I had to tolerate it without anything.” Finally, I was
> able to have the operation.
>
> I asked him why they did not put us on their health plan. I hear, “Oh,
> NOO! it is much too expensive, we could not afford that.” “Well,” I
> said, “if it is so expensive why not cancel your plan and come into
> the plan you are proposing for us, it would save a lot of money?”
> “NOOO!” he replied “we could not do that.” (You really have to love
> these
> guys.)
Why am I so upset over this? You see I have been sick and without the
> care I received, I would not be writing this letter, I would not be
> alive.
>
> So I propose this: Every Senator and Representative that votes “YES”
> for this plan, as it stands now, has to give up their insurance and
> join it, if it is so good for the rest of us!!!
>

Thank you. I sent that along to my circle.

Great work, Jane! This likely would not have happened without your efforts.

Seconded.

I was in the States this weekend celebrating my 50th high school reunion. We were a democratic community, and still are, and most of my classmates eventually got educated and have done well. But I was amazed at their ignorance concerning health care issues, and their total misinformation with respect to the Canadian single payer system, which they think is an unmitigated disaster. I couldn’t believe it. What I believe is the power of negative advertising. It is working. I thought there would be more support for a public option. It seems weak, at least in this unrepresentative community of oldtimers on Medicare.

Thank you Jane 1000%! Now, can we get everyone to bombard the TV networks with emails and phone calls to invite a liberal (Maxine Waters, Dennis Kucinich, etc)to appear on the Sunday talk shows?

Otherwise, only blue dogs will be seen this weekend.

Thanks Jane, all the Front Pagers and all the Pups for all that all of you have done to force our elected officials to make sure that the American People get a robust Health Care Option! With the continued work we will get a Public Health Care plan that will help all citizens and put an end to these terrible bankruptcies that are happening right now because the Insurance Companies refuse to pay for what they issued their policies to cover!!
We must keep the fight going!!

“…Otherwise, only blue dogs will be seen this weekend…”

That’s for damn sure. I can already hear Gregory, Stephanopolous, etal kissing blue dog ass…which is unacceptable.

The tide has turned!

Also, Rose hosted a Dean-Frist debate on healthcare reform yesterday. Lets just say, if it was a fight, it would have been stopped in the 1st Round. Reconciliation was promised here, as well. Too many highlights to list here, but just watch.

http://www.charlierose.com/view/content/10524

Tell a friend…Tell 5 friends! Let’s rise up this weekend and be heard.

Natch.

I wonder if Frist’s health care plan covers black eyes and broken noses?

This confuses me…Sheila Jackson-Lee was asked this question and she waffled around it…sounded like they would vote for the HELP bill in the end.

My guess is the final bill will look like the HELP bill and this is an attempt by them to keep the House bill to the left of that one so in conference, the HELP bill becomes the compromise.

It was a Blue Dog compromise in the Senate HELP committee bill. The cost containment question is what is going to drive rates; the market currently does a poor job of it. If you limit participation in the public option with a firewall to prevent a rush to a single-payer plan, you reduce the ability of the public option negotiated rates to drive costs because insurance companies need only get exclusive contracts with providers with substantially higher rates in order to shut out the provider base for the public option.

If Medicare providers automatically become public option providers under a Medicare-plus rate schedule, you leverage the purchasing power of Medicare for the public option. The “plus” part of the rate schedule is to permit a certain amount of profit in the system, with the public option plowing its “profit” into being able to expand coverage to the uninsured.

And the Senate HELP bill draft might have been written by Senator Kennedy’s staff but the markup added a number of features from Blue Dogs and even from Republicans (most notably the Coburn amendment requiring Congress to get its healthcare through the public option).

Progressives getting up enough spine to have an actual reform bill will not kill it. And Democratic Senators not named Baucus and Conrad are getting a little miffed with the obstructionism in the Senate Finance Committee. What will kill it is Democrats letting the insurance companies get their way in ripping off the taxpayer.

I haven’t seen coverage anywhere of the rally in Washington today to mark the anniversary of Medicare . . . anyone know how it went?

Nor any campaigning… nor any donations!!!

Okay, I need to apologize. Why? Because I’m thoroughly shocked that 53 Democrats have spoken up for the right thing. I’m floored, actually. [Not sarcasm] Thanks to everybody here who’s tried to make a difference, when all I did was stand around and bitch. Assuming that activism is involved in the case of these folks, you may have actually done something for the greater good. Postive thoughts (finally) for you all.

As for the 53, I would like to thank these people, who will be under a lot of pressure. That would be an online petition I’d gladly sign. But we need a public means of showing support, something simple like they’re doing in Iran by wearing green. Since voting didn’t work, there needs to be a different way for the 76% to get their point across.

Frist is checking his policy now. Last time he brought it out was after the Shiavo debacle. That one was only covered upon his one-way ticket back to Tennessee.

You bet and ITA. I was just pushing a ‘bumper sticker’ idea.

You da bomb, Jane!!!

Best news I’ve heard all week -as long as these Congressmen keep to it.

I called my Rep, Mazie Hirono [HI-2]. Almost before I got out of my mouth ” I’m calling to encourage her to sign the letter of the Progressive Caucus . . .” the receptionist said “she’s signed it.”

They also reported that they were getting “a ton of calls” which is unusual, since her district covers the less-populated [non-Honolulu] areas of Hawaii which are not known for their political sophistication.

I think Obama ought to get out in front on this in two different ways:

1) campaign like crazy. Go around the country, make speeches, target districts with “Blue Dogs” and Idiot Dem. Senators. Let them either appear on the podium, or put an empty chair up there & note their absence.

2) twist arms. Deputize Rahm, the architect of this disaster, to call all these idiots he was so willing to fund three years ago, and tell him to tell them to get in line. Enough of this “we’re in conservative districts.” 2010 is 18 months off, and if these losers want DCCC campaign cash or Obama appearances or access to the Obama on-line resources, they need to step up.

I was shocked when watching Obama’s appearance at the event in the grocery store in VA re the questions posed to him. Clearly the Republican/insurance industry brain-washing has taken effect, and people are worried about just the issues that the scare tactics have raised. Obama ought to be on tv EVERY DAY debunking a top 3 or top 5 of these myths.

Finally, Obama ought to limit his “events” to ones like the grocery store one, and eliminate “press conferences.” We don’t need David Gregory and the Fox loons asking questions and twisting facts. Let Obama interact with “real people” and respond to their concerns.

I called Anna Eshoo’s office left a message to sign on to the Progressive caucus’ letter to preserve a strong public option and not allow the blue dog democrats to water down cost saving provisions, to keep a public option that uses Medicare reimbursement rates that keep costs down and insures most (over 97%) Americans. We need health care reform that is not crippled from the start and by signing on to this letter she can help assure that we get quality reform.

I attended and will post about it on Seminal after a good night’s sleep.