Liberal Groups Make Final Push for Public Option

By: Stephanie Condon
Topics: Health Care

5192102President Obama will address a joint session of Congress next week, following calls from legislators to give the Congress more direction on what should be included in a health care reform bill.

Some reports indicate that the president will stand by his position that he supports a government-sponsored health insurance plan, or "public option," but does not consider it a necessary part of his plans for a health care overhaul. Politico, citing unnamed administration officials, reports that the some in the administration would even "welcome a showdown with liberal lawmakers if they argue they would rather have no health care law than an incremental one. The confrontation would allow Obama to show he is willing to stare down his own party to get things done."

The potential "showdown" would pit Mr. Obama against at least 60 members of Congress who have said they will only support a health care bill with a public option. Legislation lacking a public option would also risk losing the support of the president's most liberal constituents.

The influential labor union the AFL-CIO has said it will only get behind legislation with a public option; moreover, the union's soon-to-be president has said politicians will pay a political price if they do not support the public option. Other groups are following suit, and to prove their point will keep up the pressure on Congress by digging into members' campaign finance histories, demonstrating in front of health insurance companies and fundraising for ad campaigns.

Democracy for America, the liberal advocacy group founded by former Democratic National Committee Chair Howard Dean, expects the president to reiterate his support for the public option when he addresses Congress next week, DFA spokeswoman Mary Rickles said. Meanwhile, she said, her group and its 400,000 members will continue to pressure members of Congress to back the proposal.

"Any member of Congress who votes for a bill without a public option and against the wishes of the American people will stand alone for reelection," she said.

The Health Care For America Now Campaign (HCFAN), comprised of more than 1,000 organizations in 46 states, will also continue to urge Congress this month to pass a bill with a public option, as well as strong health insurance regulations and means of ensuring affordable health care that is accessible to all Americans.

"We're working aggressively to be sure the bill that gets to the president's desk at the end of the day includes all those elements," said HCAN National Campaign Manager Richard Kirsch.

This month the group is planning demonstrations at health insurance companies' headquarters and will publicize stories of patients harmed by health insurance policies, as well as information about insurance industry profits and executive pay.

Given that there is a public option in both the House and the Senate bills that have been introduced, Kirsch said he expects there to be enough congressional support for the measure to pass.

In case there isn't, Jane Hamsher, who runs the liberal blog FireDogLake, is looking for dirt on the Democratic members who have yet to say they will only support a bill with a public option. The blog has managed to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for politicians who commit to only supporting a bill with a public option.

"For me, sitting by and watching (Congressmen who have not made this commitment) help to bailout PhRMA and the insurance industry on the backs of the middle class, just when people are struggling to find decent jobs in the midst of a recession, is not an option," Hamsher wrote on FireDogLake Wednesday. "We'll be looking into the campaign finance histories of these members, as well as their voting records, to try and ascertain if there are reasons they are not signing on that the public should know about."

With or without any skeletons in their closet, members of Congress should feel pressured to vote for a public option if they want to keep their seats, argues the group the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. The group is sponsoring ads to promote the idea that the public option is widely supported, even by Republicans. (The latest CBS News poll shows that 60 percent of Americans favor the public option, including 35 percent of Republicans.)

"If President Obama ultimately refuses to demand a public option, that would be the surest way to see his own popularity plummet and see congressional Democrats lose seats in 2010," said Adam Green, co-founder of PCCC. "Democratic and independent voters overwhelmingly want a public option -- not to mention a large chunk of Republican families."

Stephanie Condon
Stephanie Condon is a political reporter for CBSNews.com.
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by misha256 September 6, 2009 6:41 PM EDT: http://www.cbsnews.com/8601-18563_162-5258294.html?assetTypeId=30&tag=contentMain;contentBody

by CP30 (SouthernForever) August 22, 2009 12:11 PM EDT
Misha, I'm not concerned about what the republicans did in the past like you are so fascinated with pointing your finger at...those days are OVER AND DONE.
....

----
Meanwhile back at the ongoing REPUBLICAN side of the Health Care debate
That's right Rowdy -- YOU don't care about the 2000 people that waited on rationed evaluations in Alaska or the 254 people that died awaiting those evaluations or the 4 Medicaid programs just emerging from moratorium because of the incompetence of the Palin Administration. You also don't care about the VETS Bush dumped out of the VA system or the VETS that had to deal with Bush's rationed care due to underfunding or the VETS forced to stay in rat invested rooms in hospitals in the US. You don't care about seniors harassed by Government officials and their medical providers for end-of-life decisions passed into law by Republicans in the Medicare act of 2003 THAT ARE STILL IN EFFECT.

It is completely clear ROWDY that YOU JUST DON'T CARE PERIOD.

DO YOU JUST NOT CARE ABOUT THESE TOO , Rowdy?

http://pnhp.org/new_bankruptcy_study/Bankruptcy-2009.pdf

"RESULTS: Using a conservative definition, 62.1% of all bankruptcies in 2007 were medical; 92% of these medical debtors had medical debts over $5000, or 10% of pretax family income. The rest met criteria for medical bankruptcy because they had lost significant income due to illness or mortgaged a home to pay medical bills. Most medical debtors were well educated, owned homes, and had middle-class occupations. Three quarters had health insurance. Using identical definitions in 2001 and 2007, the share of bankruptcies attributable to medical problems rose by 49.6%. In logistic regression analysis controlling for demographic factors, the odds that a bankruptcy had a medical cause was 2.38-fold higher in 2007 than in 2001."

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http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/political_commentary/commentary_by_joe_conason/the_real_death_panels

Add to that information on deaths (18,000 - 20,000 - 22,000 / year) related to lack of insurance or underinsurance and the current problem appears to be clear. 137,000 died between 2000 and 2006 according to studies

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http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/05/insurance_loss.html

14,000 a day losing health care insurance

Let's be generous to the detractors of health care reform and ignore extra days in the year and assume that only applies to the weekdays (Monday - Friday)

then 52 X 5 X 14,000 = 3,640,000 more uninsured people this year.; Reply to this comment


by pasmalltown September 4, 2009 9:37 PM EDT: by Mortarman29 September 3, 2009 12:14 PM EDT
Well, no. The first responsibility of ANY government, whether it be a democracy or a constitutional republic (which we have) or a dictatorship, is to protect its borders and its citizens from attack.

Now, I dont want my country to be like so many others and turn against the citizens. Thats why I hae communism, dictatorships, monarchies, and even democracies. They ALL eventually turn on the citizens and become oppressive! All of them have throughout history. Our Founders were very clear about this.

Instead, I want an active distrust of our government by every citizen. I want a government that is tied up so tight with bindings such as the Constitution that no matter what they want to do, even if they think it is in my best interest, they cant do unless the law says they can.

In the end, we must constantly be pushing back against our government. Or we too will fall victin to every other peoples throughout history. we are not special and we are not immune.
___________________

My point went way over your head, and unwilling to agrue with a rock, I will only say I don't agree with you and that you entitled to believe that the first duty of a government is to protect it's borders.

I was simply saying that blind trust in one's government can lead to the government becoming the enemy. The Constitution began with the idea of "no taxation without representation". "Our Founders were very clear about this." It makes no sense to protect one's borders and it's citizens first, if the threat comes from within those borders..........In our own kind of funny way you twisted your argument around to just that towards the end.

Dragon8me also made an excellent point with:
"...it's easier for a camel to pass thru the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven. And when you have, you spend your life trying to hold on to it and or get more. There's no happiness in that."

To this I would add:
"you ain't seen too many luggage racks on a hearse."; Reply to this comment


by slownewsday_5 September 3, 2009 4:53 PM EDT: "by Mortarman29
Gotta run to baseball practice with my kids."

LOL!! Just saw this! Poor kids!; Reply to this comment


by Mortarman29 September 3, 2009 4:19 PM EDT: Signing off folks. Slow, it has been fun!

Gotta run to baseball practice with my kids.; Reply to this comment

by Mortarman29 September 3, 2009 3:54 PM EDT

Hey Slow, if you were living in the early 1940s, would you have supported the war against Japan, Italy and Germany?

Cant answer it can you? Typical neocon!!

----

LOL. I sound like Slow now!

Reply to this comment


by slownewsday_5 September 3, 2009 4:01 PM EDT: That was a necessary war in which we had been attacked.

The ones you support are unnecessary.

Take your blinders off, Mort.


by Mortarman29 September 3, 2009 4:09 PM EDT: Oh, so if it is a necessary war, then fiscal responsibility doesnt matter, right Slow?


by Mortarman29 September 3, 2009 3:46 PM EDT: Hey Slow, if you were living in the early 1940s, would you have supported the war against Japan, Italy and Germany?; Reply to this comment


by Mortarman29 September 3, 2009 1:58 PM EDT: An Obamacare supporter bit off the finger of an anti-Obamacare supporter during a protest.

These people are savages!; Reply to this comment

by vhcon September 3, 2009 1:24 PM EDT

Before everyone jumps up and down saying we need a public option please answer one quetion.... and that is HOW MUCH WILL IT COST PER PERSON, HOW MUCH WILL COST FOR A FAMILY OF 4. I can not belive that the same peole running AMTRAK and the post office youwant o run your health care.

Reply to this comment


by dragon8me September 3, 2009 1:39 PM EDT: First let's look at our monetary system. It is backed by debt. If there were no debt, there would be no money in circulation. We rent our money from international bankers, called the Federal Reserve, which in neither Federal nor a reserve. If the government, meaning us, wanted to we could take back control of our money. The majority of our national debt is paying rent on our own curency. If we took back control of our money, the government , us, get to make the rules about how the monetary system works. We could start by not paying the international bankers because their system is unconstitutional to start with. A government that don't control it's own money is doomed and is a slave of the central bank. This is where we're at. With a clean slate, even with all the spending we do now plus the health care plan, taxes would me minimal. In fact, only the corporations would pay tax, which was how it was in this country to start with. As long as we have a federal reserve system, the dollar will continue to loose value and when they print more money and we have to rent it, inflation grows.
Do a search for a movie called Money As Debt.


by vhcon September 3, 2009 1:22 PM EDT: Before everyone jumps up and down saying we need a public option please answer one quetion.... and that is HOW MUCH WILL IT COST PER PERSON, HOW MUCH WILL COST FOR A FAMILY OF 4. I can not belive that the same peole running AMTRAK and the post office youwant o run your health care.; Reply to this comment


by Mortarman29 September 3, 2009 12:40 PM EDT: Obama has dropped his demand for the ironically titled "public option" (i.e., government-run health care), which taxpayers will not have an "option" to pay for or not.

Liberals never, ever drop a heinous idea; they just change the name. "Abortion" becomes "choice," "communist" becomes "progressive," "communist dictatorship" becomes "people's democratic republic" and "Nikita Khrushchev" becomes "Barack Obama."

It doesn't matter if liberals start calling national health care a "chocolate chip puppy" or "ice cream sunset" -- if the government is subsidizing it, then the government calls the shots. And the moment the government gets its hands on the controls, it will be establishing death panels, forcing taxpayers to pay for abortions and illegal aliens, rationing care and then demanding yet more government control when partial government control creates a mess.

Which happens to be exactly what liberals are doing right now.; Reply to this comment