Harry Reid told the Las Vegas Review Journal that the bill coming out of Congress will have a public option.

U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said today there will be a "public option" in whatever health insurance reform bill comes out of Congress.

"We are going to have a public option before this bill goes to the president's desk," Reid said in a conference call with constituents, referring to some kind of government plan.

."I believe the public option is so vitally important to create a level playing field and prevent the insurance companies from taking advantage of us," he said.

Reid also mentioned the inclusion of incentives for healthy behavior, something suggested by Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev.

What form of a public option is something we don't know.

dday runs down the various types of proposals that are out there in his post: What's In A Name?

Well, we'll know one way or another soon enough and although many are not optimistic about the chances of a vibrant public option the fact that Reid has injected it into the dialogue after he has been unwillingly to do so only helps our cause. And all the online activism done by the blogosphere and health-care groups has been essential or it never would have gotten this far. We will continue to push and fight and scratch and yell to save the bill from the grubby hands of the health-care industrial complex. You can count on it.

The Huffington Post updates Reid:

UPDATE: Reid's office clarifies his remarks in a statement sent over from an aide to the Senator.

"Sen. Reid believes that health insurance reform must include a mechanism to keep insurers honest, create competition and keep costs down," the statement reads. "He feels that the public option is the best way to do that. While we don't know exactly what that option will look like, Sen. Reid, working with President Obama, will ensure that whatever is included in the final bill does just that."

This seemed somewhat inevitable as Reid has largely resisted going out on a limb when it comes to the public option.

We're working on a project on C&L and we need your help. I'd love for you guys to make short videos about any problems you've had with your health care providers and send them to us at C&L. We'd like to put together a montage for Congress so they can see first hand how totally screwed up it is trying to pay for care even if you have health care in America. How many stories have you seen on TV that show us the problems Americans have with health care even when they have insurance and what they do to keep it. You won't find many at all. They think it's better for their ratings to show the infighting of the policy debate rather than show what this fight is actually about.

You can use Flip cam videos, laptops, computer web cams, cell phones or any other device you have available. We keep hearing from the conservative party of no that we have the best health care in the world and if we change anything it'll put the government between you and your doctor. It's just stupid right wing talking points to muddy up the waters to average American families, but the media doesn't investigate; they regurgitate.

The truth is that even if you and your family have health care, it's the insurance companies who stand between you and your doctor and they make it as difficult as possible if you have to deal with any other medical problem outside of a runny nose. We need health care reform badly in this country, but we need your help to expose what's really going on. How many specials have you seen on the networks that actually do in depth reporting on the relationship between you, your doctors and the health insurance companies? Only Michael Moore spent the time to put them under the magnifying glass and it terrified the Health Industrial Complex because they wanted their corruption to be kept in the dark.

Please send all videos to this email address:

crooksandliarsvideos@gmail.com

If we get enough of them we'll be able to shed some light on the problems of actually being covered, but not getting the service you paid for or the service that has quadrupled in price the last few years...

NPR turned their camera to the audience instead of the senators involved in crafting legislation and asks readers to "name that lobbyist."

When 22 senators started working over the first health care overhaul bill on June 17, the news cameras were pointed at them -- except for NPR's photographer, who turned his lens on the lobbyists. Whatever bill emerges from Congress will affect one-sixth of the economy, and stakeholders have mobilized. We've begun to identify some of the faces in the hearing room, and we want to keep the process going. Know someone in these photos? Let us know who that someone is -- e-mail dollarpolitics@npr.org or let us know via Twitter @DollarPolitics.

This is pretty cool. They aren't doing a Michael Savage on them, but pointing out how much the Health Care Industrial Complex is invested in what happens with health care reform.

DOWNLOADS: (1222)

PLAYS: (2511)

Embed

During today's presser, President Obama was asked several times about his support for the public option. He rebuffed the health care industry's talking point that a public plan would put them out of business.

Q: Won't that drive private insurers out of business?

THE PRESIDENT: Why would it drive private insurers out of business? If private insurers say that the marketplace provides the best quality healthcare, if they tell us that they're offering a good deal, then why is it that the government -- which they say can't run anything -- suddenly is going to drive them out of business? That's not logical.

President Obama is still being vague about his overall support for the public option, but then gives ample information about how strong it would be. It's like he's holding out hope that a deal will be struck in Congress without pressure from him to demand the public option out right. But that's not going to work in the end. As we've seen, senators with small populations and health care monopolies are hijacking the debate and denouncing a public option. And it's coming from members of his own party. Republicans and the Health Care Industrial Complex only want to muddy up the waters with talking points while they kill off all attempts at real competition and a real health care system that helps the American people finally get quality, affordable health care instead of enabling CEOs to purchase new villas and vacation homes while the rest of America suffers.

The President: Now, if it turns out that the public plan, for example, is able to reduce administrative costs significantly, then you know what? I'd like insurance companies to take note and say, hey, if the public plan can do that, why can't we? And that's good for everybody in the system. And I don't think there should be any objection to that.

Full transcript below the fold via The LA Times.

Continue reading »

I just started watching the media again after missing a week and for every one Democratic politician on the air talking about health-care reform, I see two conservatives attacking it. Just an unscientific observation. What is that all about? OK, I know, but seriously, WTF?

Didn't they get trounced in the last election? Didn't John McCain's health care plan get soundly defeated in the last election?

I understand the need for members of the minority party to have their voices heard, but America JUST voted them out in large part because of the problems with health care. Why do we need to hear them all repeat the same talking points over and over again -- especially when their positions are those of such a whopping minority to boot?

It's shocking to me that the polling being done shows such solid support for the public option when they media is so biased. When that happens, you know Americans aren't buying the garbage being thrown at them.

And Blue America's Campaign For Health Care Choice is rocking the house. We've raised over $15K so far to go after Blanche Lincoln, and that's just the beginning.:

Perhaps it's not surprising that Lincoln is showing so much compassion for the poor insurance companies. She's taken hundreds of thousands of dollars from them over the years. In fact, she's already received $14,500 from insurance companies for her 2010 campaign, the second highest of any senator up for re-election next year.

We've received more small donations to our cause already than Lincoln has received from the health-care industrial complex to buy her vote. You know more money will be coming her way, but the response has been truly inspiring. Keep them coming. We'll need the cash to make the media buys in Arkansas to let her and her constituents know where she stands on the public option with your help.

Robert Reich was out beating the drum yesterday, speaking on "This Week" and posting this piece in Salon:

If you want to save universal healthcare, you must do several things, and soon:

1. Go to the nation. You're not only a powerful orator; you're also capable of motivating, energizing, and mobilizing the American public. You must go on the road -- building public support by forcefully making the case for universal health care everywhere around the country. The latest Wall Street Journal poll shows that three out of four Americans want universal healthcare. But the vast majority don't know what's happening on the Hill, don't know how much money the medical-industrial lobbies are spending to defeat it, and have no idea how much demagoguery they're about to be exposed to. You must tell them. And don't be reluctant to take on those vested interests directly. Name names. They've decided to fight you. You must fight them.

This is the president's biggest weakness. Please, more drama, Obama!

2. Be LBJ. So far, Lyndon Johnson has been the only president to defeat the American Medical Association and the rest of the medical-industrial complex. He got Medicare and Medicaid despite their cries of "socialized medicine" because he knocked heads on the Hill. He told Congress exactly what he wanted, cajoled and threatened those who resisted, and counted noses every hour until he had the votes he needed. When you're not on the road, you have to be twisting congressional arms and drawing a line in the sand. Be tough.

3. Forget the Republicans. Forget bipartisanship. Universal healthcare can pass with 51 votes. You can get 51 votes if you give up on trying to persuade a handful of Republicans to cross over. Eight years ago George W. Bush passed his huge tax cut, mostly for the wealthy, by wrapping it in an all-or-nothing reconciliation measure and daring Democrats to vote against it. You should do the same with healthcare.

4. Insist on a real public option. It's the linchpin of universal healthcare. It's one thing to give up on single payer, and say that a public option is the best feasible alternative. But further compromise would essentially gut any healthcare plan. Don't accept Kent Conrad's ersatz public option masquerading as a "healthcare cooperative." Cooperatives won't have the authority, scale, or leverage to negotiate low prices and keep private insurers honest.

5. Demand that taxes be raised on the wealthy to ensure that all Americans get affordable healthcare. Not even a real public option will hold down costs enough to make healthcare affordable to most American families in years to come. So you'll need to tax the wealthy. Don't back down on your original proposal to limit their deductions. And support a cap on how much employee-provided healthcare can be provided tax free. Yes, you opposed this during your campaign. But you have no choice but to reverse yourself on this. These are the only two big pots of money.

6. Put everything else on hold. As important as they are, your other agenda items -- financial reform, home mortgage mitigation, cap-and-trade legislation -- pale in significance relative to universal healthcare. By pushing everything at once, you take the public's mind off the biggest goal, diffuses your energies, blur your public message, and fuel the demagogues who say you're trying to take over the private sector. You have to win this.

What is wrong with these supposedly centrist democrats? Do they hate the American family? Are they so deep into the bag of the health care industry? Howie Klein emailed and said:

Let's see, $1,306,872 in direct "contributions" from the Medical-Industrial Complex and another $402,231 in "donations" from Big Insurance.

You get the picture. She actually openly supported it, but now maybe her massive campaign contributions has changed her mind.

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) pledged her support for a public health care option in April, two months before she announced opposition to such a plan, according to a signed letter she sent to a major reform coalition dated April 11.

Read the letter, obtained by the Huffington Post, here.

"I'm not open to it. I'm not open to a public option," Landrieu told the Huffington Post early Tuesday afternoon. "However, I will remain open to a compromise, a full compromise. Public option is not something that I support. I don't think it's the right way to go."

The idea that we don't have the "single payer plan" not on the table to negotiate with is insane to me. Instead of at least using it as a bargaining chip, we start with the public option. And now these American hating politicians will try to comprise the heck out of the public option. You know what that means. They will try to make it worthless so the health industrial complex prospers at the expense of the health of the American family. I promise you we are not standing down. Some of us are in the middle of planning an action. I'll let you know about the details when we have it...

Hillbilly Report: George Bush comes to Louisville and regular folks speak up. Now that's Kentucky. In Tennessee they cut 323,000 people from the state healthcare rolls and the President said that was "innovative."

Intrepid Liberal Journal: Does anyone care about America's Prison Industrial Complex?

Club Lefty: Great Expectations with Dick Cheney

Think there just isn't enough cursing in the blogosphere? The Captain finds even more sources.

And the "understatement post-title of the week" goes to Tufts Gadflies for "Bill O'Reilly, Not Exactly a Feminist." And the line to form a "women's cabal" to "terrorize" Mr. O'Reilly forms right behind me.

Guest round up by Blue Gal.