Look at this man, Rep. Mike Ross, who’s proud of himself for defying President Obama and working to kill health care reform in the Energy and Commerce Committee mark-up today. He’s proud that he’s in line with Republican Senator DeMint who wants to make health care reform into a "Waterloo" to break President Obama’s agenda. [...]

“Breaking” a Democratic president is much, much more important to Jim DeMint and his fellow Republicans than your lives, your health, your fortunes, and/or your sacred honor.

The easiest political path is still running the “co-op” crunch.  Regardless of what the House does, the Senate can pass Conrad’s shitty fake co-op.  The Blue Dogs band together and refuse to vote for anything else, and that’s what comes out of conference.  There’s a PR blitz to sell it as a “public plan” (which is why we’ve worked so assiduously to define it as NOT a public plan), and in a rush to get something passed, Rahm starts twisting progressive arms — which have been historically very easily twisted.

Shorter version:  keep calling.

Currently, the health care reform legislation that’s being held up in the House of Representatives is because of the Blue Dog Democrats on the Energy and Commerce Committee. They’re refusing to vote for the passage of health care reform out of Waxman’s committee. They are the ones blocking health care reform from happening in the [...]

We’ve added Rep. Wexler to the list. Please make sure to send him a big “thank you” over at the Health Care Heroes page. We’ve got ten….30 more to go.

Last night, Speaker Pelosi wrote a blog post on her website about the House health care bill from the Tri-Committee staff that showed it as being deficit neutral and that it would yield a $6 billion surplus. This is huge news because it cuts off arguments from so-called "fiscal conservatives" like moderate Democrats, Republicans, and [...]

The last House committee to pass the Tri-Committee health care bill out of its committee is the Energy and Commerce Committee. The reason why Rep. Waxman on that committee is having trouble passing health care reform is because of the Blue Dog Democrats. Of the three House committees working on health care reform bill, Energy and Commerce is the one that happens to have the most Blue Dog Democrats on it. So it’s them that’s blocking progress on the House side when it comes to health care reform.

UPDATE: Here’s the weekly address from President Obama at the White House, which was released early. In the weekly address, President Obama set out the parameters of the health care debate, explained what the opponents of health care reform were doing, and drew a line in the sand around the essential elements of health care [...]

The labor union AFSCME and one of the nation’s largest health advocacy organizations, HCAN, went up with a huge $800,000 ad buy in eight states urging Blue Dog Democrats to support the passage of health care reform in the House of Representatives.