Congress Daily is reporting that Reid is going to file “simultaneous cloture motions” on a package of bills, none of which he appears to have the votes for. Bart Stupak is saying they’re talking about throwing it in the omnibus bill, and beating members into passing it with “voting against the troops.”

Join me at 3pm in Rockville and have fund phone banking together at Sue Cohen’s house.

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Harry Reid uses his control over procedure to do what Harry Reid wants to do. (Tell that fish story about “60 votes” and Joe Lieberman being the block to anything to someone else.) And what he wants to do is block Dorgan’s drug reimportation bill, and protect Obama’s PhRMA deal.

It is becoming clear that Reid’s “deal” was not really a deal so much as the vague outline of what could be a deal. Add to that that it now looks like this vague outline still will not get 60 votes. The “deal” would give Joe Lieberman’s committee the power to regulate health insurance. Jane [...]

If your progressive Democratic member of Congress decides to support the corporatist agenda and vote for a health care bill that makes the insurance companies say “we won,” they probably need to be challenged.

If you’d like to volunteer to be a part the effort to recruit a “Medicare for All” candidate in your district, sign up here.

I’ve been casting around for suggestions from people I trust about what kind of a platform we should ask Medicare for All candidates to agree upon. We want to avoid the problem we have right now — people like Charles Rangel who are cosponsors of H.R. 676 until it doesn’t matter. I’m sure the $1.4 million he’s taken from insurance interests has nothing to do with it.

Here are the initial suggestions. Please add yours in the comments.

If you ever wonder why the media does not pay a lot of attention to the House of Representatives, here is why. Pelosi said there’s “not much” chance the House will simply take up the Senate bill (a process known informally as “ping ponging”) but that differences between the two packages will be resolved in a [...]

One of the big components of the new possible “deal” in the Senate would be to create a new, national Office of Personnel Management (OPM)-run program. How exactly this OPM exchange for national non-profit insurance plans, which is meant to be a replacement for the public option, would work is unclear. Rumors are that if [...]

We thank Representative Grijalva for his strong leadership throughout this fight. If Nancy Pelosi tries to pass a bill without a public option, we will be thanking him and those who stick by him with a fundraiser and GOTV efforts in their districts during the next election.

For those who decide that it’s in the best interest of their communities to vote for a bill that has insurance lobbyists crowing “we win,” we’ll be recruiting and supporting challengers against them who embrace Medicare for All.

They can’t represent WellPoint to the detriment of their constituents and hold a strong Democratic seat uncontested.

It is time for a fair warning to all Democrats currently in Congress: Don’t be shocked when your bases does not turn out next year. The public option is still supported by 59% of Americans and 80% of self-identified Democrats. Despite its overwhelming popularity, the Democrats in the Senate have been working tirelessly to kill [...]