NYCEve and I met with Rep. Ellison and Rep. Grijalva today, who have been key organizers working to form a progressive block to insist that any health care reform bill that passes have a public option. Both indicated that when progressives spoke to President Obama this week, they emphasized how important it was that he mention the public option in his speech tonight.

The Public Option. Lots of controversy right? Well, there shouldn’t be. Since the New Deal, ’public options’ have played a key role in preserving America’s standard of living and our way of life. Social Security provides public options for income protection for seniors and disabled people. Medicare, the VA, Medicaid, and MinnesotaCare are public health insurance options available to some members of our community, but not to enough of us.

Rep. Mike Ross, who flip-flopped on the public option and has authored an amendment that seems like a copycat of Max Baucus’s no-good, terribly bad bill, has been in secretive talks with a Republican, Rep. Charles Boustany (R-LA), for weeks. Guess what? Rep. Boustany’s the one that’s scheduled to give the GOP address to President Obama’s [...]

But by July 30, as Scarecrow noted, Conrad “has so far declined to provide more than a vague definition of his co-ops and has yet to explain how such entities could function.”

So how did Mike Ross apparently know what the Conrad plan would be on July 31?

Up until now, the President has been able to have it both ways. Vague public endorsements of a public option have allowed progressive supporters to believe that the President wants one even as his administration does nothing either publicly or strategically to work for one. Trial balloons like the one above are dismissed as “Politico’s GOP propaganda” and they feel reassured when he makes statement of abstract support. Many have dismissed the overt implication of a commitment to a “bipartisan bill” — since the GOP will never support a public option, no “bipartisan” bill will ever include one.

That needle will soon become impossible to thread.

Time to fight for what you were elected by the American people to accomplish, President Obama. Comprehensive, universal health care with a robust public option, no games, no triggers, no co-ops, no silliness.

I’m happy that Raul Grijalva is cracking the whip on the 60 members who signed the letter saying they would vote against any bill that does not have a public plan. I think it’s great that he says that “triggers” mean “surrender.” But we need to hear that from everyone else who signed the letter.

Saying nothing is not fair. The people whose lives are deeply affected by what happens here, their constituents and their supporters, deserve better than these half-assed trial balloons and ambiguous statements. They need to state once and for all, every one of them, that they understand “triggers” are a sell-out. Anything short of that is unacceptable.

The White House is hammering the 60 progressive House members who pledged to vote against any health care bill that does not have a public option, trying to get their number below the 40 vote threshold. But Raul Grijalva is cracking the whip and maintaining discipline, and says accepting “triggers” is unacceptable.

While Blue Cross’ pet senator Kent Conrad pushes for co-ops, a scandal on the North Dakota prairie shows what happens when BCBS — which would be part of the co-op system — is allowed monopoly status in a given area.

NYCEve met with Yvette Clarke and asked her directly if she’s vote against any bill that does not have a robust public option — no triggers, no co-ops, all the way through conference. Her answer: an emphatic yes.

“There is no health care reform without a robust public option,” she says.