“I have listened to your proposals. I like them and want to implement them. Now make me do it.”
- FDR

It’s up to us to make them. Go FDL!!!

Rahm Emmanuel is vile. His hand is on this.

It’s all about Barack now. He needs to invite recalcitrant Democratic senators to the Big House, one by one, and tell them his presidency is on the line, along with the Democratic realignment. You in, or you out. And by out, I mean, you don’t get to play anymore.

Looming in the heads of some of these Dems, no doubt, is the corporate money windfall awaiting Senators when the Roberts Court overturns campaign finance caps. “You in or you out” is also being heard from the corporate community, especially for these small-state senators who most need their largesse.

“Tell Senator Reid to Lead. THE TIME IS NOW!”

Contact info for Reid and the White House at this diary post.

This is the time to speak as loudly as we can!

Please send Reid and the White House polite letters strongly stating your support for a robust public health insurance option that must be made available to all Americans.

If this is true Harry and his son will need new careers.

Reid better do the right thing and add the PO.

Oh, and let’s take Joe Lieberman’s gavel just for being the bozo he is.

It almost doesn’t matter now, how they try to kill the public option and shift the blame. It will be on all of them and we’ll crush these duplicitous bastards and sweep their asses out of Office just as swiftly as we got Obama elected and placing them in the majority. I hope all this inside bullshit continues to leak so that at every turn we’re able to let them know that, we know what the fuck they’re up to and will squish them like bugs in the very next election. They haven’t seen motivated yet! Fuck us over after all the work we put into changing this country and we’ll expose and hound your asses right out of office. And that includes Obama. Somebody had better grow a pair and fast!

If the Media was not controlled by Corporations the phrase One term President would be all over the news if the Public Option fails.

If it weren’t so serious.. it would be funny watching all these forkers trying to screw so many millions of their own people with their pants on.

thanks Greg.

had to know this was coming with Baucus and Ben Nelson singing kumbaya on caucus unity yesterday.

commented in an earlier thread it looked like the veal pen was busy (anonymously of course)yesterday waving the pom poms for the ’sincere’ and concerted efforts of the Majority Leader on behalf of the PO

oy

The CBO needs to go back and re-score the bill without a public option. When everyone is required to purchase health insurance, it should make up a MUCH larger percentage of the CPI than presently. Health insurance costs are rising faster than inflation, and that will become even more apparent without a public option to control costs. COLAS are tied to the CPI. A mandate without a public option should dramatically increase the CPI, along with higher entitlement costs due to the COLA = increased deficits.

I’ve got a better idea. Let’s put the public option in, but let the mandate be added by amendment.

Rahm is suppose to be a fixer no matter how this ends his Rep is fading, except of course in the Media’s eyes.

Yeah. And it doesn’t really matter if they all get thrown out of office. We’ll still have to wait another generation to try again for healthcare reform. Infuriating.

did you see yesterday’s attempt at a triple double back ?!?!?

shame he couldn’t stick the landing

left you something in the It’s Reconciliation Day! thread yesterday

I have a question that I’m hoping somebody may have some insight into: is the reason Dem leaders are so excited about keeping Snowe happy and engaged because of the cloture threat from Lieberman? Theoretically, we don’t need Snowe to overcome a Republican filibuster unless one Dem defects. If more than one defect, she’s useless anyway. So the magic number is one.. and who else could that one be than the Great Troll of Stamford? In other words, is our healthcare reform package in effect being dictated by Snowe by proxy of Joe? Could Joe be holding the country hostage (by forcing us to engage with Snowe to get the deal done)?

I think it’s definitely a plausible theory. Lieberman is the most likely candidate to join a GOP filibuster, IMO.

What is Harry Reid’s phone number again? Oh yeah, 202-224-3542. Line is busy…wonder why.

I find that prospect.. incredibly… angering.

Thanks. Read it this morning. So glad I did, too, because I was soooo wrong about the procedure for recondiliation.

For once, Democrats need to show just a hint of spine and make them actually filibuster. Let the public see who’s standing between us and health care reform. Make them stand in a bucket and read the phone book if they want to keep us from having an up-or-down vote.

Click here to see the PCCC’s 4-minute video showing Bold Progressives and Alan Grayson delivering their petition with 90,000 votes on it, which includes mine!

Grayson: “Right now, we need people to call. We need people to send emails. We need people to go to websites. We need people to insist on justice for the public.”

And go here: “Tell Senator Reid to Lead. THE TIME IS NOW!”

Contact info for Reid and the White House at this diary post.

If there is no PO, there shouldn’t be a problem getting the 60 even with Lieberman though, right?

Absolutely maddening. If a six to four majority can’t get a bill passed that at least six of ten citizens approve, then what exactly is the point of pretending to be part of a democratic process somewhere?

I’ve about made up my mind on the matter. If a ‘decent’ bill doesn’t pass, one that cuts the greedy buggers off at the pass, then screw it, I’m not going to waste my time with anything political anymore. I first registered to vote in 1963, days after my 21st birthday. In two pres. elections since then (1996 and 2008) I voted for the winner. And, over the course of that now forty-six year span, the country has basically gone to hell in a hand cart, is now waiting to be flushed that last time. And nobody who CAN do something about it appears to be willing to tell the bandits to stuff the cash where the sun don’t shine, to take a stand for progress, for the people. Nope, they play the fucking game over and over and over again.

I’m too old for this crap. If it doesn’t make any difference as to who or which party is in charge, if ‘business as usual’ is forever the only option, than why bother? Next election day I think I’ll go fishing. Screw it.

I don’t know if I would call it that… whatever it was, Ross clearly hasn’t moved.

I expect him to come out with that old call for “a level playing field” any now. *s* Toss in a “read the bill” for good measure.

I wouldn’t rule out Landreiu.. she’s been quite hateful about reform all year.

“Rumor: Public Option To Be Left Out Of Merged Senate Bill”… we can only hope and pray.

I’m appalled that clinton is campaigning for Ross.

Heh. Harry’s line still busy. Bet his staffers are getting an earful.

NEW RUMOR: “Harkin: Final health care bill will have public option”

Never Give Up.

did everyone see D-Day added an Update ? it seems the little puke is gonna keep everyone guessin’ till what, tuesday ??

Second link about not working:

“Tell Senator Reid to Lead. THE TIME IS NOW!”

I hear ya!

It’s so obvious that no one wants to represent the voters. It’s. all. about. the. benjamins.

DC is waiting for the next “balloon boy” moment to stick it to us all, fooling themselves into thinking we aren’t watching.

oh I agree that she’s generally a hateful person, but I’m optimistic (as I believe is the Dem leadership) that she’ll posture to the last minute and then vote with the party on cloture. She’s not going to be willing to make history on this (by being the first person in recorded history to filibuster their own party), and she almost never puts her neck out. She’s bought and paid for, not insane.

This rumor smell like Rahm.

did everyone see D-Day added an Update ? it seems the little puke is gonna keep everyone guessin’ bidding for his vote till what, tuesday ??

fixed it.

Sure he’ll vote for cloture…if there is no reform in the bill. Just take his gavel already.

Why are we not hearing from Obama on PO in a loud clear voice?

that list is long and undistinguished – Landrieu, Lincoln, Carper, Nelson, Nelson, Conrad, Bayh, Baucus, – all of them willing to let the troll of Stamford run cover for ‘em

I don’t think any of those people will filibuster their own party on this issue in the end (even if they are, as you are saying and I agree with you, prepared to let people think they might). And if not them, then the real threat Reid et al are responding to by courting Snowe is non-other than the Great Troll. It may all come down to him. One single traitorous weasel.

Obama on the public option: Duplicity we can believe in!

Any Democrat or Lieberman who votes against cloture should be stripped of their committee chairmanships.

Because ObamaRahma cut a deal months ago, since then they have been trying to find a way to kill the PO without anyone blaming them for it. So you will hear nary a peep from the WH about this. Other than their usual non-commital bs about keeping options open, blah blah blah. That’s why it is up to us to threaten and cajole Reid to put a real PO (with Wyden’s amendment making it more broadly available) in the bill.

Blue Texan’s regularly scheduled post is up and ready: “Get a Grip, Wingnuts: John McCain Obsessively Quotes Mao Zedong”

Would you like the happier explanation first?

By the way, Joke Line was on NPR this morning (On Point out of WBUR in Boston) saying that the PO is “wildly peripheral” to the healthcare debate. So the veal pen and their poster boy are out in force to pretend the PO is entirely inconsequential and we all need to get behind individual mandates to keep the insurance industry fat and happy. Booyah.

All of these unattributed stories popping up.

I ask, “Which of Kent Conrad’s aides did the NY Times talk to?”

Or was it Evan Bayh’s aides?

“Pointing to a Thursday meeting of Senate Democrats in which most members of the caucus expressed support for a government-run insurance plan, Harkin said only five members of his party are holding up progress toward a such a plan.”

Let’s guess the five: Landrieu, Bayh, Nelson, Lincoln, and Conrad?

Landrieu (who recently and most shamelessly spun nonsense about how the public is confused about the po), Bayh, and Lincoln for sure.

If it is these five (I’d throw holy Joe in the mix) how do we influence them?
Money wants the PO killed. Humans insist that it be included. Usually voters have less memory than donors.
How do we make it vivid that the voters will never forget the betrayal of killing the PO? I think the lever is fear. VIVID FEAR of defeat at the polls.

It is time to stop complaining about Rahm. He is just the fixer. He is not doing anything that Obama does not want. It is time to aim the critisism toward the man that has the power. Have you seen Obama actually fight for the Public Option, no. Is he fighting Reed on the secret filibuster ballot, no. If we don’t get a public option it is because Obama and Reed did not fight for one.

wouldn’t call the po inconsequential, but i’m not living in a veal pen and i’m not sure that the pos currently under consideration aren’t worse than no po. :(

and i hate hate hate the idea of mandates, especially without demonstrating first the ability to actually effectively regulate the insurance corps.

is there any senator who, if an acceptable po is not included in the bill, is willing to submit an amendment for a po and then refuse any UC requiring 60 votes for passage of the amendment?

and if it comes to a vote in the senate on a po-less bill, are there any senators who would vote against it?

background from kagro x at congressmatters.

I think more importantly, we need to know which of these five are so against the P.O. that they are willing to join a Republican filibuster to make sure it is never included. I think for now we just have to wait and see what Reid does. If he does include a P.O., I think it’ll already indicate that these five intend to fall in place and vote for cloture; otherwise, we start an all-out war against them. If Reid doesn’t include a P.O., then the attention falls on the House Progressive Caucus once again and finding out why (or rather because of whom) he did not include it.

Mandates should only be enacted for a few things, I agree. But you and I live with mandates every day.

Can you choose not have a social security number and choose not to contribute to social security? Can you choose not to contribute to Medicare? Can you choose not to pay federal taxes?

I, for one, think that important rights are laid out in the Declaration of Independence and that we are granted those rights in the Constitution and I want the money that I’m forced to pay to the government to be used to ensure those rights, i.e. to improve our health care system and to make quality health care available to every American.

Roland Burris, Bernie Sanders, JayRock, Feingold.. are all possibilities I’d say

Any Democrat or Lieberman who votes against cloture should be stripped of their committee chairmanships.

do you think bernie sanders (or any other progressive in the senate) should have to vote for cloture on a po-less, sucky bill they hate? isn’t that the opposite of the progressive block strategy?

i was glad when dodd threatened to filibuster telco immunity and would have been pissed if he had gone through with it and been punished in that way.

Check out my diary post “If there’s no PO, Dem Senators should vote against cloture.”

I want the money that I’m forced to pay to the government to be used to ensure those rights, i.e. to improve our health care system and to make quality health care available to every American.

i agree. but i’m not objecting to paying the gov. and the bill we’re discussing doesn’t make quality healthcare available to everyone.

i have no problem paying taxes for ss, medicare and i would love to see hr 676 enacted. these though are not the same as forcing people to purchase insurance from a corrupt and massively wasteful insurance market. i don’t want to see the insurance companies, which now control so much of our gov’s policy making, made even more powerful.

tax me and have the gov use the money for healthcare instead.

apologies for not responding to responders above earlier.

the PO is clearly the best choice left on the table to do anything meaningful for the American public to cut costs.

The fact that BO is not speaking out clearly for this is a glaring betrayal.

IOW, I guess my question was kinda rhetorical.

I hate to agree with that statement, but I agree with that statement.

The GOP will filibuster this irrespective of the contents of the bill.

Progressives need to threaten a filibuster if there is an individual mandate with no strong public option.

Hopefully, we will dispense with the IM and PO and just go for insurance business practices reform without guaranteeing them a captive customer base. Fuck em.

good. thanks!

Another anonymous rumor? I thought this was the news desk.

A lot of news comes from anonymous sources.

the PO is clearly the best choice left on the table to do anything meaningful for the American public to cut costs.

i don’t think the po (as currently configured) will do much of anything to cut costs. cost are probably going to go up with obamacare. but a po could be an alternative that acts as a refuge/escape for the seriously ill that private insurance companies don’t want to cover. scarecrow has a couple of recent diaries and comment threads where this is discussed:

http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/8870
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/9191
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/9592

I very much agree about not wanting more money than necessary to go to a corrupt and massively wasteful insurance market!

Don’t you think that having a public health insurance option that will be available to all Americans would keep private health insurers more honest, even if only a little, and would bring health care costs down for everyone?

yikes! three links got my commented caught by the mod filters

(i thought the limit was 5 links? or does the news page have different rules? i’ll try to usually follow them if i know what they are — i do sometimes blow it with the linkies.)

Why is the focus on the Conservative Dems and what they will do? Keep on the Progressive Dems. Without a public option, make sure they won’t vote for cloture. There are more of them. The progressive Dems are the ones always expected to compromise. NO MORE! If they give in, are they any better than Harry Reid? If the Democrats are’nt going to act like a Party, I want to know so I can so I can stop wasting my time and money.

Why can’t we just sign up two or three Democratic Senators to agree to filibuster if it DOESN’T include a PO???

You get say, FIVE, who come out and PLEDGE to support an R Filibuster if there is NO PO, then let them howl about party unity, and watch them go crazy about how dare you vote against the D’s on a procedural vote. They’ll show their hypocricy for all to see.

Besides, without a PO (and as far as I’m concerned none being discussed in the Senate is really ver robust anyways) I’d sure as heck think the country would be better off with no bill.

So why not try to get two or three D’s to publicly pledge they’ll support the filibuster if it has NO PO??

True enough, but I refuse to believe there is any way the public option doesn’t land in the merged bill from the Senate in honor of Ted Kennedy and is home free from there. All this other stuff is just keeping the balloon in the air and giving people something to carry on about while reimbursement rates are sorted out.

Numerous Senators have signaled what they need to support the PO. Some require better Medicare reimbursement rates for rural hospitals and clinics, a reasonable request. Some require financing be non-redistributive of income generated outside of the health care system, a bit tougher to accommodate. Some simply require a market (albeit nonprofit) price, easily accomplished.

Sorry to carry on, but I think today’s anon. rumor is to distract from the discussion of the anti-trust exemption for the insurance industry. They are under fire on two fronts and I believe are trying to generate some splits within the Democrats. Truly I think they will fail badly.

Whoops, nevermind, I see it’s already been discussed here.

My bad. Gotta read more of the other stuff here at FDL before responding I guess.

i don’t think the po will “keep private health insurers more honest.” i think it will be a dumping ground for the sickest and most expensive people. if that happens it will help insurance companies keep their costs down.

i don’t like that, but even so i still see the humanitarian benefit of a po (if it can survive).

it does irk me no end when the po is over sold as something it is not. let’s be straight about everything so people can make up their own mind (instead of being swayed by the marketing).

after all, it’s possible that a weak non-viable po may be worse than nothing (especially if it lets the republicans win the later “i told you so” debate if the po should not perform as advertised. that might teach the public that gov can’t run a public insurance (like single payer or a truly robust po like hacker’s original proposal). we’ve got to think ahead if we’re not to set back the long term goal of universal healthcare.

that’s my opinion anyway. ymmv.

If so and if my Senators back such a move, I’ll be canvasing door-to-door.

I can’t wait to explain how some Dems saw healthcare reform: they were so worried that we wouldn’t voluntarily pay the premium increases that their insurance CEO buddies were planning that they decided to reform the payment system. Henceforth, private health insurance premiums will be a TAX that we have to pay to the CEOs via the government.

That should go down great. And no doubt the Republican canvasers will be saying the same thing–that’s bipartisanship!

That is a very smart response, I think you’re right that the PO has to improve the situation for small business as well as the uninsured (all of them) to be helpful. It has to be broad and effective enough to MAKE the private insurers (including the new ones that will spring up after the anti-trust exemption is gone) want to compete for all those new customers at Medicare plus something.

selise,

“is there any senator who, if an acceptable po is not included in the bill, is willing to submit an amendment for a po and then refuse any UC requiring 60 votes for passage of the amendment?”

I don’t know, but my candidates would be Sanders, Whitehouse, Brown, Feingold, Leahy, and Franken.

“and if it comes to a vote in the senate on a po-less bill, are there any senators who would vote against it?”

Sanders and perhaps one or more of the others named above. If all five of them voted against it, others would be encouraged to do it too, because they would have some cover.

Thanks for the link to David Waldman’s post at congressmatters.

Welcome to the club. Big Money has our government tightly sewed up. They use their unlimited funds to decide who gets nominated, elected, and re-elected. Party politics is just for fun–who gets the best office space and parking place. Big Money writes the legislation and controls the vote. And they own the courts as well, to protect their interests.

If the folks who need a truly democratic government would look as if they might rebel and vote for someone outside the wholly-owned parties, I would gladly join them. But they seem more concerned with religion and ethnicity than with their own well-being. So let’s go fishing.

This is only true if we restrict the public option to people without insurance and, in effect, treat it as a national high-risk pool.

A public option could work if all subscribers had the option of choosing it at any time for any reason, if rates are tied to Medicare, and if private insurers are tightly enough regulated to make cherrypicking and cost-shifting difficult.

I’m pretty healthy, but I would choose any reasonably priced public option over a private plan. The public option would be more reliable and trustworthy, which mattters with insurance. Plus I just hate the two private insurers available to me that much. When it comes to serious illness, what coverage they provide is more of a crap shoot than it is insurance, and you have to fight even for that.

The real issue behind all of the backroom dealings and the millions of dollars in lobbying is choice. The insurance industry/conspiracy knows that, given the choice of anything close to public insurance of the kind they have in France, almost every subscriber is going to opt in to a public plan, creating a de facto single-payer system. Every political machination we are seeing is predicated on this basic fact.

So as long as we insist that anything called the public option is really public and freely available, we win. The danger is that something called a public option is really a high-risk pool that becomes so expensive that it is quickly abandoned.

This is why I find rumors about attempts to strip the option completely potentially reassuring. They mean that what is being called a public option is still robust enough to write the future of private insurance on the figurative wall.

Just who are the truly Progressive Democratic Senators. That is, other than dear Bernie, and I know he’s a Democratic Socialist (he said that, himself). I’ve never really felt I could rely on any of the Ds.

A public option could work if all subscribers had the option of choosing it at any time for any reason, if rates are tied to Medicare, and if private insurers are tightly enough regulated to make cherrypicking and cost-shifting difficult.

sure. but i see that as about as likely as single payer.

here’s why: the bit about “tightly enough regulated” is absolutely key. and very very difficult to pull off (hasn’t been done in the usa to my knowledge, although it has been tried multiple times). the problem is that the regulation, the enforcement, all the details that make or break the system are designed behind the scenes (even more than the legislative process) where the industry lobbyists are strongest and have the most power. furthermore we have an administration with mr. larry no-regulation summers running economic policy (and that’s not even considering the possibility of republicans being in charge again – yikes!).

so, i see two paths to universal healthcare:

1) where the fight is primarily a regulatory fight behind closed doors with the lobbyists virtually in charge. this is the public option in a multi payer system fight. if we can win it, we have a public option that must be continually defended from the health insurance company lobbyists who will forever seek to undermine it in ways we can not even guess. all behind closed doors where the regulations are written and enforcement decisions are taken. and this policy does not save very much money compared to single payer (maybe 10% of the savings?).

or

2) where the fight is out in the open with a movement/populist fight to take the health insurance companies on directly. this is the single payer fight. if we can win it, private insurance companies will no longer be involved in the financing of medically necessary healthcare. and we will have saved enough money by getting rid of them to provide first dollar universal comprehensive healthcare to all (first dollar means no deductibles, no copays, no coinsurance. iow, no out of pocket costs).

This is why I find rumors about attempts to strip the option completely potentially reassuring. They mean that what is being called a public option is still robust enough to write the future of private insurance on the figurative wall.

i completely disagree with this. 1) the insurance companies aren’t stupid, they are going to put on a good show in order to make us think just as you’ve outlined. 2) i think it’s the regulations the insurance companies don’t like (the mandate, of course, they love). the po is a secondary issue — and even if was able to affect the profits of the insurance companies a little bit (profits i think are running about 3-4%), than is not very much money to us but it means big bucks to executive salary and possibly to stock prices.

the PO has to improve the situation for small business as well as the uninsured (all of them) to be helpful. It has to be broad and effective enough to MAKE the private insurers (including the new ones that will spring up after the anti-trust exemption is gone) want to compete for all those new customers at Medicare plus something.

do you see that in any of the bills under consideration?

right now insurance companies compete on cost by denial of care. unless that gets regulated away (again very very hard to do) competition will be a race to the bottom.

in some markets, like weakly regulated health insurance (or “free trade” for that matter), competition does not result in good outcomes. it’s a neoliberal free market fallacy that too many dems have bought into.

Ha! Great minds think alike!

Please teke a look at If there’s no PO, Dem Senators should vote against cloture

i remember when bernie sanders tried to get a temporary surtax on individuals making over $500,000/year to pay for a part of the tarp bankster bailout last fall. not one senator joined him in voting for that amendment.

imo, a bunch of economic reactionaries work in the senate.

no apologies needed. it’s good to know what others are thinking!

Actually I think the repeal of the anti-trust exemption will improve the situation – private insurance companies will have to compete on cost and service rather than collusion and denial of care.

I love it that this was launched on them late in the process, too late for them to include defense for their anti-competitive corporate set-up in the talking points for the media.

The HELP bill I believe combined with HR3200 + anti-trust repeal (new) should just about do it, although I am no expert compared w/most folks that comment and blog here.

Prepare to get royally fucked by the merged bill, and be told that it’s just more Ninja Politics to eventually get the PO in Conference. At each step, Progressives will be asked as Dan says to “move the bill along” until it’s too late.

Thank you Rahm.

John

Cynic.

This diary and a number of others at Firedog Lake today frame the coming phase of the legislative process in terms of the need for 60 votes to get cloture and pass the PO. For example:

“Left out of this story is the fact that any amendment to the bill on the Senate floor would in all likelihood need a cloture vote – in other words, 60 votes – in order to pass. Therefore the placement of the public option inside or outside of the merged bill is crucial, as there are probably not 60 votes to either insert it or remove it from the legislation. So allowing an amendment as a “compromise” is not really a compromise at all.”

While all that is true, it is only so because of the existence of the filibuster in Senate procedure. However, it only takes 50 votes + the VP to get rid of the filibuster through using the procedure known as “the nuclear option.”

This possibility is often dismissed by progressive bloggers, with the cursory remark that the “nuclear option” won’t be used by the Democrats, and the bloggers then go on to talk about scenarios involving 60 votes. But, I think this is a mistake. We should not be writing only about what is likely to happen or what may happen, or whether progressives in Congress should oppose a UC agreement or not. We should also be writing about what it is possible for the Democrats and Harry Reid to do, and what they should be doing.

I think this last involves the issue of their decision to live with the filibuster both in the health care reform area, and also other legislative areas, and therefore to continue to live with the burden of always having to corral 60 votes before they can legislate something.

This decision is a decision to overturn the results of the last election. It is a decision to empower the Republicans and the blue dogs to block reform. It is a decision to fail at reform and to break the promises the Democratic Party made to the American people.

Harry Reid’s and the Democrats’ failure to get rid of the filibuster and to legislate effective reform is the big story about these last months of the health care reform effort, and perhaps even of President Obama’s first term. And it is a story that most of us progressive bloggers are ignoring, as previously we ignored the President’s taking single-payer off the table, and talked up the public option instead.

What we should be doing now is generating a deafening blog chorus about the Democrats having the power to remove the 60 vote requirement in favor of the constitutional 51 vote one, by getting rid of the filibuster once and for all. But we are not doing that. Instead we are accepting the legitimacy of the filibuster and discussing the arcana of navigating the PO through what may prove to be multiple 60-vote barriers, before even a very weakened PO can finally emerge. What kind of progressivism is this?

That’s true, but I think that this reform process has been very different and that more Senators are stubborn in their support for the PO. Btw, only one Senator can torpedo a UC agreement. So, Bernie can do that by himself.

The money a PO would save annually is peanuts compared to what HR 676 could save if it were passed. It’s likely that enhanced Medicare for All would save $700-800 Billion per year, or $7 – 8 Trillion over ten years compared to the present system. The PO would only save a small fraction of that figure.

You bet. Progressives need to defeat a bill in the Senate that has no PO. If the President wants a bill moved out of the Senate, have him get Harry Reid get rid of the filibuster.

No. Tosh is just mistrustful and so am I. What reason do I have at this point to trust either the Administration, or Harry Reid?

Check this out. New CBO report out today estimates that the House bills which include a public option and which cover 95% of the people, will run about 900 billion.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/capitol-briefing/2009/10/house_health_bill_trimmed_by_3.html?hpid=topnews

This totally takes the steam out of Max Baucus’s cheap crapola, non-public-optioned bill. What he was selling was ‘cheapness’. Now that the CBO report for the House bill is out, Max’s argument is moot.

I rather there be NO bill than some watered down, bull shit bill. The DemoCRAPS are going to feel the backlash from the base in the 2010 midterm elections.

The NY Times is allowing itself to be used as a propaganda vehicle for the White House. Anonymous administration sources should not be used to undermine people like Tom Harkin who are on-the-record supporters of reform. Every time you read a story like Herszenhorn’s your next call should be to the NY Times public editor to complain.

Hey Jane, how about doing a progressive senate block. how many progressive senators would it take, joining the Republicans to defeat the Baucus bill? Why not Whip It? Lets get Senators to take the pledge, no public option, no bill!

it worked in the House, why not the Senate?