As you guys may have heard by now, there are minor changes to the Senate Reconciliation bill, which means that this bill will definitely have to go back to the House for passage. Republicans are reportedly considering this a "consolation victory". After the huge defeats they have faced for the past 4 years, this is insignificant, but I am not even willing to give this small victory to them.
The door for Democrats to introduce amendments has now been opened, and it is time to test out how many votes there are in the Senate for the medicare buy-in that Rep. Alan Grayson (praise be upon him) has proposed.
If it gets defeated, thats fine, we know who to get rid of for the next election. We just need to bring it up to a vote. Thats it. Don't forget that Republicans have brought up many amendments. We couldn't bring it up, because the Senate did not want to change the bill. Now it is changed. There is no excuse. Let's do this.
We need to rally really quickly and call our senators again, today and tomorrow, as many people as we can. I hope Move on, Fire Dog Lake, DFA and others who rallied for the million phone calls can rally again.
This is URGENT. We need to show that we will never give up. We will make calls again and again and again.
The lobbyists have spent millions of dollars for killing the public option, and right now they are celebrating. How sweet would it be to bring an option even more lethal to their interests? Republicans are congratulating themselves for sending this back to the House. How great would it be, to let them know that their own actions led to an even more liberal bill? Their heads will explode!
Lets get the attention of every progressive organization, and lets do this as quickly as we can.
Note: I support the Medicare buy-in over the Public Option for several reasons. First, different senators support different forms of the public option. The same is true in the House. It will take time to negotiate over the best one. Secondly, I think the Public Option is harder to sell to the public than the medicare buy-in (despite its popularity) because the Public Option is a new bureaucracy and its actions are yet undetermined. Republicans can lie about it over and over. Thirdly, I think this is stronger than the Public Option.
But Medicare is already here, and its more popular than the public option among Republican constituents.
As I published this diary, I saw Hesiod already posted a diary about this (well the public option not the medicare buy-in) here, along with Senator Bernie Sander's (respect be upon him) office phone number!
Bernie Sanders promised he would introduce the Public Option. Let's make sure he does.