Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated. Mark Twain

That quote came to mind immediately – and often – yesterday.  I kept getting tweets and messages coming across my phone wailing about the death of the public option – but I was in the company of Senators Tom Harkin and Al Franken – both members of the Health, Education, Labor and Welfare Committee in the Senate – and the pugnacious Harkin is now the chairman, stepping into the large void left by the death of Senator Kennedy.

Personally, after yesterday, I can’t think of a better man for the job.

If the public option is on it’s deathbed, no one told him, that’s for sure.  Here he is in pretty much his own words, after taking the podium to thunderous cheers and applause…

The first thing he did was thank his beloved wife of 41 years – and the first Harkin ever elected to public office – for her introduction.  “Thank you very much.  Ruth, thank you so much for those very kind words, and thank you for 41 years of love and encouragement.  Thank you,” he said as he took the podium.  The audience again clapped for Ruth, a member of the state Board of Regents (Iowa has great schools and colleges).  Iowa Democrats love Ruth as much as Tom does.  

He then thanked the volunteers and told the assembled crowd that this wonderful yearly event only happens because of them. “We couldn’t do this without the volunteers. Thank you all. You’ve just done a great job, all of you. ”   He then thanked a long list of accomplished Iowa Democrats, both elected and behind the scenes – from the state Governor and Attorney General, right down to the County Chair and the sign language interpreter who has been with them for the entire 32 years the Steak Fry has been THE event for Iowa Democrats.  

He then singled out Governor Culver  and thanked him for a long list of accomplishments and examples of solid, competent leadership., especially his leadership during the flood disasters of last year.  He also thanked him for his leadership in education, renewable energy, and thanked him for the jobs that have been created across the state in wind energy and biofuels.  “Governor, you have been there for us, you have been there for  Iowa, and next year we’re going to be there for you, Iowa will be there for you, and there will be another four years of the Culver-Judge team leading the state of Iowa!”    He went on to proclaim that Iowa Democrats would increase their margins in both chambers of the General Assembly, because “the Iowa Democratic Party is strong, and progressive, and fortunate to count a good number of bright, committed young men and women to provide the future leadership to make Iowa the best it can be,” and he beamed as he said he couldn’t be more proud of them.  Then he launched into his speech.  

“So let me just start by saying, this is my kind of town hall meeting!   Don’t have any of those republicans standing up and yelling ‘Keep your government hands off my Medicare!'”   The crowd responded to this with loud laughter and applause.   “Or shoutin’ about those “Death Panels” , how we want to pull the plug on Grandma!  I said ‘Nonsense! I’m married to a Grandma, and a pretty darn nice one, too!’  and the crowd responded with even more raucous laughter.  

Then he adopted a serious tone.  “Well, of course, not all of the nuttiness has been funny.  It was Sarah Palin who came up with that shameful nonsense about “Death Panels” and shame on anyone who repeats it, anywhere in this country,” and he paused when a several members of the audience repeated  “Grass-ley! Grass-ley!”  in a sing-song voice.  Going on, he said that “The time for the shouting and the demagoging is over.  Now it’s time for the truth, and for action, and fighting back, and it started Wednesday night when  President Obama addressed the Congress,”  and he paused for the crowd to applaud and cheer.  “That was a great speech, wasn’t it?”  and the crowd cheered some more.  

Resuming the serious tone, he remembered Ted Kennedy and how he was privileged to speak with him in June, and how even as sick as he was, Senator Kennedy was up to speed on where we stood in the fight to reform healthcare in this county.   “We lost a great friend.  We lost a great progressive.  We lost a great leader on so many issues that go to the heart of what kind of nation we are.  What kind of people we are.  How we extend a helping hand to those in the shadows of life.  Well, as has been said…” and he was interrupted by a jet overhead that was approaching the airport at Des Moines, about 20 miles away.  While he waited for the noise to abate he made an on-the-spot joke to Al Franken about a flyover by the Minnesota National Guard, and the crowd reacted like there were two professional comedians on the stage.  When the noise from the crowd (the jet was long gone) subsided, he resumed his speech.  “Well, as you have heard, as has been said, after 22 years on this committee, and working very closely with our leader, Senator Kennedy, it now falls to me to pick up the torch and Chair the Kennedy Committee.”  He then added that Senator Franken  will also have a seat on the HELP committee, and the crowd greeted this information, that the Chairman would have at least one true progressive ally who will fight for the public option, with robust enthusiasm.  

He went on “No one – No one – can take Ted Kennedy’s place, but I will tell you this – I’m ready for this fight, I’m ready to lead this committee, I’m ready to take charge of it, I’m ready to carry on his work, and I’m ready to get a health reform bill passed and to President Obama before Christmas time!”  The crowd came to its feet, and stayed there and got louder when he thundered “And you might as well stay standing because that strong health reform bill – mark my word, I’m the chairman, it’s gonna have a STRONG PUBLIC OPTION!

“Well, as we saw at the town halls, there are people out there who oppose any health reform.  Now some of these folks simply want to bring down Barack Obama.”  At this, the crowd said “Grassley” as if the name itself were bitter to the tongue, but Senator Harkin had Jim DeMint in his sights.  “And some folks simply hate what we stand for as progressives.  So friends, we have got to have the courage of our convictions.  We’ve got a tough battle ahead of us, but we have to stand strong.  We’ve gotta stand united.”  

He praised the president for taking the lead, addressing congress and going out into the country to address the debate head on and present the case to America, like he did in Minneapolis on Saturday, then he reiterated his intent to see a strong public option as part of the final bill, and thanked Senator Franken for his help in the fight ahead.  

“We have got to have the courage of Franklin Roosevelt when he was running for reelection in 1936.  In a speech in Madison Square Garden, he talked about those who were attacking him for passing Social Security, he said, and I quote, “We had to struggle with all the old enemies. Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against a President as they stand today.  They are unanimous in their hate for me. And I welcome their hatred.”  He went on to recap seventy years of republican opposition to every single program and law that has made people’s lives better, from Social Security to overtime pay to the ADA – which is Harkin’s law – and every other piece of progressive legislation in between.  All those things have come to pass because progressive Democrats have fought tooth and nail for them and never stopped fighting until the American people – all of them, not just Democrats –  won – and never had it been

He finished the serious part of his speech, before introdu
cing the guest of honor, Senator Franken,  by imploring the activists in attendance to get to work because the time was now to “fight the lies and distortions.”    Talk to your friends and neighbors and coworkers who buy into the nonsense and know the facts and set the record straight…because we need a health system in this country that works “not just for the healthy and the wealthy, but for all Americans.”  

Now, I was there.  And I heard him.  I talked to him in the press gaggle before the speech and I listened to him as he answered every single question. I have been around the political block a time or two.  I can usually tell when I am being led down the garden path – support for Mark Funkhouser, my personal Bay of Pigs, notwithstanding – here’s my take:  When Tom Harkin tells the party faithful in his home town that he is going to deliver a strong public option, and the people who know him best and who bust their asses every election to get him and other Democrats elected in Iowa, and they believe him with enthusiasm, well, let’s just put it this way…I slept real fucking good last night.  

Senators Al Franken and Tom Harkin in Indianola, Iowa.

Both Senator Tom Harkin (D), Chair of the Senate HELP Committee, and Senator Al Franken (D) a member of the Senate HELP Committee stated to the press and in their speeches at the Harkin Steak Fry in Indianola, Iowa today that health care reform legislation coming out of the committee would have a strong public option.

There were approximately 1500 to 2000 people in attendance at the Warren County fairgrounds. A tiny group of teabaggers picketed one of the main entrances to the event along Highway 92. They received some encouraging horn honking along with a few single finger salutes.

The crowd of Democratic Party and progressive activists and supporters heard speeches from Iowa politicians, Tom Harkin, and Al Franken. This was a very supportive audience – they liked what they were hearing.

Emanuel Cleaver and Lacy Clay deserve respect and appreciation for their progressive stand on health care reform. The House Progressive Caucus, of which they are members, just sent a second letter to Obama reiterating their demand for a public option and their request for a meeting with the president. They sent a similar letter at the beginning of last week and were supposed to get a meeting with Obama before his Wednesday speech. Somehow, that meeting didn’t materialize, but the progressives are not backing down.

Skelton and Carnahan haven’t indicated that they’ll vote against a bill without a public option, but they’d be happy to vote for one that had it. There are lots of Dems like that in the House, but such reps don’t have the numbers to pass the bill by themselves. Pelosi is softening her insistence on the public option, but she cannot get a bill through the House if the Progressive Caucus holds fast. (Passing a bill requires 216 votes. Democrats have 256 members, 83 of them in the Progressive Caucus.)

Blue Dogs in the Senate create the opposite picture there. They’ll keep Ds from getting the sixty votes for a Senate bill with a public option. Our own Claire McCaskill might vote against such a bill–not that she has to worry, because the Senate simply wouldn’t produce such a bill.

Democrats who want the public option envision a couple of possible scenarios.

Here’s one: The progressives hang tight in the House and a bill with a strong public option is passed. In the Senate, the bill is either weak enough to draw Olympia Snowe in (with a trigger) or else Massachusetts gives the Dems their sixtieth senator. Either way, a weak bill is passed. The conference committee writes a final bill with a public option, and Massachusetts definitely gets a replacement for Kennedy to D.C. At that point, any Democratic senator who votes against the final bill is political toast, and we manage to pass a bill with a public option.

Here’s another possibility: The same scenario occurs in the House, but in the Senate, Democrats ram the final bill through with reconciliation. Howard Dean spoke on Sunday to that idea:

Former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, reflecting the views of many liberals, on Sunday suggested that Democrats should abandon bipartisan health-care talks and go it alone with a bill that includes a public option.

“At the most, we’re going to get three Republicans senators and no Republicans in the House,” Mr. Dean said. He suggested Democrats should use a controversial legislative strategy known as reconciliation that would allow the Senate to approve a plan with 51 votes.

“Republicans and Democrats both ram things through,” Mr. Dean said, “At the end of the day, the American people want a health-care bill and they don’t care if it’s through reconciliation.”

The problem, though, is that reconciliation can only be used on budget bills, and the health care reform bill will have more in it than just budgetary matters. Those other matters would require the sixty votes, and the whole process would be messy.

Still, Harry Reid has indicated his willingness to use reconciliation and Dean likes that idea.

So reform with a public option could happen. We have to do our part this next month to back up the Democrats, and Cleaver and Clay in particular. If you’d like to get a yard sign and give Health Care for America Now (HCAN) some funds to work with, click here.

And call or write Clay and Cleaver to thank them heartily for standing firm.

As for Claire, we’ll have a lot more to say in the near future. She needs to hear from us till her staff begs for mercy.

Photos courtesy of Wikimedia commons

The crowd at the Sunday evening health care reform rally couldn’t have made it any plainer what they want: “Public option now!” they chanted spontaneously before the OFA bus arrived. Unfortunately, the speakers weren’t stressing that. The public option got scarcely a mention in fifty minutes worth of speeches. In the video below, you’ll hear the crowd, without anyone leading it, start the chant. Then you’ll see how torpid everybody was later while Russ Carnahan spoke–with an occasional shout of “public option now” from someone in the audience. But when Carnahan said the magic words, the crowd went crazy.

It struck me that several of the speakers–Robert Soutier, Lewis Reed, and Charlie Dooley–urged the crowd to chant “Health care now”, and the crowd complied. But intensity was reserved for “public option now.”

Perhaps that’s because the crowd knows that we have the votes to get health care legislation passed but also knows that without the public option to lower costs, reform will be inadequate. And it’s not as if passing that crucial element ought to be difficult. Its fate will be decided in the conference committee, where the House will insist on a public option. All we need is enough liberals from the Senate on the conference committee to vote for it.

Enter Harry Reid. He’s not so sure he supports the public option. So we can’t be sure he’ll put the right people on the conference committee. He’d be more likely to, I suppose, if Obama were speaking out unconditionally in favor of it, but I don’t hear the president doing that. When I broached the subject with OFA deputy director, Jeremy Bird, after the rally, he reiterated Obama’s insistence on “cutting costs”, but Bird obviously wasn’t authorized to say anything more specific.

So we face the maddening possibility that, despite controlling both chambers of Congress as well as the White House, Democrats might fail to pass adequate health care reform. How can this be? Bill Moyers, in an interview with Bill Maher, contends that the problem lies not just with a few spineless senators or DINOs.

[T]he problem is the Democratic Party. This is a party that has told its progressives, who are the most outspoken champions of health care reform, to “sit down and shut up.” And that’s what Rahm Emanuel, in effect, the Chief of Staff of the White House, had told progressives when they stood up as a unit in Congress and said, “No public insurance option, no health care reforms.” I think the reason for that is that, in the time since I was there, 40 years ago, the Democratic Party has become like the Republican Party, deeply influenced by corporate money. I think Rahm Emanuel, who’s a clever politician, understands that the money for Obama’s re-election will come primarily from the health industry, the drug industry, and Wall Street. And so he is a corporate Democrat, who is destined and determined that there won’t be something in this legislation, if we get it, that will turn off those powerful interests.

That is a damning observation from Moyers but one that we progressives dare not ignore. Max Baucus and Ben Nelson are in our collective face with the truth of it. And Harry Reid teases us with whether he’ll do the right thing. We’ll see, within the next few months, whether the party, from the president on down, has been so corrupted by corporate money that we cannot achieve decent health care reform. If so, the party’s soul is lost.

Senator Claire McCaskill (D) posted via Twitter today:

3 public forums on healthcare tomorrow. Hannibal,Moberly,Kansas City.Looking forward to explaining my support for a public option. about 3 hours ago from TinyTwitter

That’s not exactly news…

Thanks, Claire!

…but it’s nice of her to specifically reiterate her support today in view of the current environment.

Then again, the devil is in the details. Show up at a town hall this week and encourage Claire McCaskill’s support of a real public option.

The Congressional Progressive Caucus sent a letter [pdf] to Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius today:

Congress of the United States

Washington, DC 20515

August 17, 2009

The Honorable Kathleen Sebelius

Secretary, U.S. Department of Health & Human Services

200 Independence Avenue, S.W.

Washington, D.C. 20201

Dear Secretary Sebelius,

We write to you concerning your recent comments about the public option in health insurance reform.

We stand in strong opposition to your statement that the public option is “not the essential element” of comprehensive reform. The opportunity to improve access to healthcare is a onetime opportunity. Americans deserve reform that is real-not smoke and mirrors. We cannot rely solely on the insurance companies’ good faith efforts to provide for our constituents. A robust public option is essential, if we are to ensure that all Americans can receive healthcare that is accessible, guaranteed and of high-quality.

To take the public option off the table would be a grave error; passage in the House of Representatives depends upon inclusion of it.

We have attached, for your review, a letter from 60 Members of Congress who are firm in their Position that any legislation that moves forward through both chambers, and into a final proposal for the President’s signature, MUST contain a public option.

Sincerely,

Raul Grijalva

Co-Chair

Congressional Progressive Caucus

Lynn Woolsey

Co-Chair

Congressional Progressive Caucus

Barbara Lee

Chair

Congressional Black Caucus

[emphasis added]

They members of the caucus who signed the original letter [pdf] in July included Emanuel Cleaver and William Lacy Clay:

Congress of the United States

Washington, DC 20515

July 30, 2009

The Honorable Nancy Pelosi

Speaker

U.S. House of Representatives

H-232, The Capitol

Washington, DC 20515

The Honorable Henry Waxman

Chairman

House Committee on Energy and Commerce

2125 Rayburn House Office Building

Washington, DC 20515

The Honorable Charles Rangel

Chairman

House Committee on Ways and Means

1102 Longworth House Office Building

Washington, DC 20515

The Honorable George Miller

Chairman

House Committee on Education and Labor

2181 Rayburn House Office Building

Washington, DC 20515

Dear Madam Speaker, Chairman Waxman, Chairman Rangel, and Chairman Miller:

We write to voice our opposition to the negotiated health care reform agreement under

consideration in the Energy and Commerce Committee.

We regard the agreement reached by Chairman Waxman and several Blue Dog members of the Committee as fundamentally unacceptable. This agreement is not a step forward toward a good health care bill, but a large step backwards. Any bill that does not provide, at a minimum, for a public option with reimbursement rates based on Medicare rates-not negotiated rates-is unacceptable. It would ensure higher costs for the public plan, and would do nothing to achieve the goal of “keeping insurance companies honest,” and their rates down.

To offset the increased costs incurred by adopting the provisions advocated by the Blue Dog members ofthe Committee, the agreement would reduce subsidies to low-and middle-income families, requiring them to pay a larger portion of their income for insurance premiums, and would impose an unfunded mandate on the states to pay for what were to have been Federal costs.

In short, this agreement will result in the public, both as insurance purchasers and as taxpayers, paying ever higher rates to insurance companies.

We simply cannot vote for such a proposal.

Sincerely,

Lynn Woolsey

Raul Grijalva

Carolyn Kilpatrick

Jerry Nadler

Phil Hare

Lucille Roybal-Allard

Keith Ellison

Earl Blumenauer

Mel Watts

Donna Edwards

John Olver

Dennis Kucinich

Laura Richardson

Maxine Waters

John Conyers

Judy Chu

Maurice Hinchey

Hank Johnson

Diane Watson

Jackie Spier

Bill Pascrell

Lloyd Doggett

Marcy Kaptur

Mazie Hirono

Bob Filner

Linda Sanchez

Marcia Fudge

Barbara Lee

Andre Carson

Sheila Jackson Lee

Michael Honda

Jim McDermott

William Lacy Clay

Jim McGovern

Yvetter Clarke

Eric Massa

Chellie Pingree

Jesse Jackson, Jr.

Elijah Cummings

Bennie Thompson

Gwen Moore

Donald Payne

Fortney “Pete” Stark

Ed Towns

Corrine Brown

Alcee Hastings

Nydia Valezquez

Luis Gutierrez

Grace Napolitano

Albio Sires

John Tierney

Mike Capuano

Chaka Fattah

Jose Serrano

SamFarr

Bill Delahunt

Eddie Bernice Johnson

Added July 31, 2009

Gregorio Sablan

Robert Wexler

Emanuel Cleaver

[emphasis added]

Missouri has some truly excellent Democratic members of Congress.

That’s the upshot of Bill Lambrecht’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch article on Blunt’s role in shaping GOP “policy” on health care reform. (I’m not sure you can call it “policy” when you can only produce a slim four page brochure chock full of slogans and devoid of numbers.)

Voters fed up with insurance companies’ red tape and denials of claims seem to favor a public option: 70 percent or more endorse the government’s entry into the health care competition, recent polls show.

But Blunt has been unstinting in denouncing a public option. He uses the phrase “government-run” to describe a shift that he sees as dangerous both to the health care system and to its clients.

“If there’s a government competitor, in the very short term, you wind up with no competitors,” he said in an interview. “When voters begin to understand that the government takeover of health care is really the end result of a government competitor in the marketplace, they’re not going to like that.”

Um, Roy, you might want to take a look at the level of competition among health insurance companies in Missouri. In your own district, 94% of Joplin’s citizens are insured by a single insurance company.

In any case, the article cites polling that shows an overwhelming majority of Americans as supportive of a public option, which Blunt opposes. Guess who also opposes the public option?

Not surprisingly, insurance companies are fighting to squelch a public option. Echoing Blunt, Robert Zirkelbach, director of strategic communications for America’s Health Insurance Plans – which represents virtually all of the nation’s health insurers – said government involvement would “dismantle” the current system and destroy corporate innovations that aid consumers.

“He (Blunt) is certainly very thoughtful on health care issues, and I think he showed that by the proposal they put forth,” Zirkelbach said.

Yup. Health insurance companies are ready to stand side by side with Roy Blunt in the battle against the public option and preserve a broken system of rapidly rising premiums and insurance company profiteering.

Yet another reason to contact Sens. Bond and McCaskill right now to ask for a strong and specific stance in favor of the public option. Pressure on McCaskill and Bond is necessary to make sure we have a strong public option and viable health care reform, which is anathema  to Blunt and insurance executives.  

When traveling in Europe while studying abroad in college, I would occasionally run into people in hostels who had a strange view of traveling. I would ask them where they had just arrived from, and they would reply something like, “Oh, we just did Budapest.” Anyone who said they had just “done” a city was hard-pressed to be able to tell me precisely what they had done, other than a pub crawl. Which was annoying, because I liked to find out about travel experiences from other travelers – what was worth the trip, what was nice enough but too crowded or expensive, etc. The “I just did…” response gave me zero information on how great or terrible destination was.

That’s the way this article left me after an initial giddiness about the CBO score of $600 billion over 10 years to cover 97% of Americans, including a government-run public health insurance plan. Sure, I’m glad to find out that leading Democrats on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee included a public option, glad that they had the CBO score the health care plan with the public option this time, and I’m elated that the CBO scored the bill as much cheaper than the incomplete plan submitted back in May. But I still feel like the reporter just “did” the public option.

From the article, all I know is that there’s potentially going to be a $60 billion a year government-run health insurance plan. I have no idea from the article whether a trigger will be put in place, a threshhold that will need to be crossed in order to activate the public option. I don’t know if the plan will be offered nationally or state-by-state. I don’t know if it will be accountable to Congress. I don’t know if it will be available to all Americans, or just those who can’t currently get coverage. All of these points would make a big difference in whether I would support such a bill or oppose it.

So I’m begging reporters to ask about what a public option would entail when you write about its inclusion in a health care reform bill. And fortunately, dear reader, we don’t need a reporter to help us find out where our Senators, at least, stand on these very important questions. Please ask Senators McCaskill and Bond for specific responses.

Do you support a public healthcare option as part of healthcare reform?

If so, do you support a public healthcare option that is available on day one?

Do you support a public healthcare option that is national, available everywhere, and accountable to Congress?

Do you support a public healthcare option that can bargain for rates from providers and big drug companies?

Still haven’t heard back from either Bond or McCaskill after two weeks of asking the question.  

Yesterday, I posted about some questions Chris Bowers composed to nail down our senators’ position on the public option. I e-mailed McCaskill and Bond, and while I’ve not yet received an official response, I’m told by a McCaskill staffer that they will get back to me.

The questions, again, are as follows:

Do you support a public healthcare option as part of healthcare reform?

If so, do you support a public healthcare option that is available on day one?

Do you support a public healthcare option that is national, available everywhere, and accountable to Congress?

Do you support a public healthcare option that can bargain for rates from providers and big drug companies?

Now, just because I sent my questions in, that doesn’t let you off the hook. It’s important that Sens. McCaskill and Bond hear from us and respond specifically to our questions. Please ask for specific responses. Don’t assume that just because Obama is president and that he has thrown his support behind a public option that a viable public option will automatically come out of the process.

For example, just today Obama’s first pick to head the health care reform effort and become Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tom Daschle, came out against a public option.

But we were concerned that the ongoing health reform debate is beginning to show signs of fracture on the public plan issue, so in order to advance the process of developing bipartisan legislation and to move it forward, it’s time to find consensus here,” Daschle said.

“We’ve come too far and gained too much momentum for our efforts to fail over disagreements on one single issue,” he said.

This despite the fact that 76% of Americans believe that a choice of a public plan offered by the federal government is either extremely important or very important to health care reform. That’s a result that surprised even the pollsters who conducted the survey. It looks like the only people insisting on the “consensus” that Daschle describes is the conservative Republicans he’s teamed up with to offer a watered down compromise plan.

Still, politicians don’t respond to generic polls. They respond to constituents and to people who contribute to their campaigns. The only way we are going to have more of an effect than the donors is if more of us constituents write in support of a public option.

Fortunately, Chris Bowers has teamed up with grassroots group Democracy for America and the Health Care for America Now! coalition to develop some tools and make it extraordinarily easy to ask our representatives these questions, and to collect their answers.

To write a letter, use DFA’s Whip Count tool. It’s got a sample e-mail you can edit, and it will automatically send the e-mail to the correct senator for you. http://www.standwithdrdean.com…

Once you get an e-mail response, you can send it in to HCAN using this webpage: http://healthcareforamericanow…

Or you can simply forward it to this address: response@standwithdrdean.com

Either way, please take just a couple of minutes to ask these questions of our senators.  

I’m pleased to know that at least one of our US Senators here in Missouri, namely Claire McCaskill, supports a public option for health care reform. Now, as we’ve seen with the Third Way nonsense, one can “support” a public option in about the same way George Bush supported “fixing” Social Security, with so many caveats and triggers that the ultimate aim is really pulling the whole thing down. I’m not accusing McCaskill of anything of the sort, but I would like to know a little more about what she thinks a public option should look like.

Chris Bowers over at OpenLeft has come up with a series of questions aimed at getting some more basic information about what kind of public option our senators will put their support behind.

The aim is to get answers from all 59 Democratic senators and some of the swing Republicans (in other words, the two senators from Maine.) And since our elected officials are responsive to constituents first and foremost, the questioning needs to come from us Missourians.

So will you write Senator McCaskill, ask her the following yes or no questions, and find out where she stands on the public option? (Since she has already professed support for the public option, instead of asking her about that, you might want to thank her.) Her e-mail contact form is here: http://mccaskill.senate.gov/co…

1–Do you support a public healthcare option as part of healthcare reform?

2–If so, do you support a public healthcare option that is available on day one?

3–Do you support a public healthcare option that is national, available everywhere, and accountable to Congress?

4–Do you support a public healthcare option that can bargain for rates from providers and big drug companies?

Once you’ve received a written response (that’s the reason we’re asking you to e-mail McCaskill instead of calling her office) post it in comments here.

For fun, you could always ask Senator Bond what he thinks about the public option here: http://bond.senate.gov/public/…

For more on the public option and why it’s essential for any real health care reform, Paul Waldman has an excellent article on the subject.