I was on Dylan Ratigan show discussing Barack Obama’s appearance on the Daily Show. There were some claims made about the impact of the health care bill that are, at best, obfuscations: What Obama said What the health care bill actually does “You’ve got 30 million people who are going to get health insurance as [...]

A new survey from Thomson Reuters is the roughly the 100th poll to show that an overwhelming majority of Americans want a public option. The poll found that 59.9% of people favor reform containing a public option. Despite being heavily attacked by insurance companies, Republicans, and a handful of conservative Democrats, the public option remains consistently [...]

Thomas Carper’s terrible new “alternative” to a public option is not winning over progressives in the House: The new version of the government-run plan, being crafted by Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), fell flat with Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), the co-chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, who’s led members of Congress who’d previously spoken out against [...]

The Hill is reporting that Thomas Carper (D-DE) will probably unveil his newest terrible public option “alternative” in roughly a week: “I expect early next week we’ll have something to share — not just with our colleagues, but with the broader community,” Carper told The Hill. Reid’s office did not comment for this article. From [...]

The more I look at the merged Senate bill, the more I’m afraid that Harry Reid might have been laying the ground work to betray progressives on the issue of the public option, and gain the support of Olympia Snowe. Many of Snowe’s top demands managed to make their way into the bill. Harry Reid [...]

Like a monster in some B horror movie, the trigger is a terrible idea that just will not die. I guess as long as you have a massive heath insurance lobby willing to spend millions to keep your pet creature alive, it will never truly meet its end. Tom Carper is now working with Olympia [...]

Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE) reinvented/cribbed/copied Sen. Olympia Snowe’s trigger proposal while hoping no one notices this effort to kill the public option. Could Carper’s former chief of staff and current WellPoint lobbyist be helping?

Reid is meeting with Senate progressives tonight to talk health care. Harkin thinks the Senate will start debate in earnest on November 30th. And, he is willing to make the Republicans work if they try to filibuster reform.   Mike Castle’s poll numbers take a huge hit, possibly because of his opposition to health care. Carper, [...]

Carper has a super new very awful public option “alternative”, which is a basically a trigger for a co-op. Jane clearly lays out the progressive block strategy and why reform must have a public option to pass. If you care about the progressive block strategy, you need to read this. The left will not be fooled [...]

Throughout this health care reform legislative process, I have been very critical of the part Sen. Kent Conrad has played in health care reform. I’ve been especially critical of his co-ops idea and his opposition to the public option. But since the House agreed to decouple the public option from Medicare rates, Conrad has expressed [...]