Please ASK PRESIDENT OBAMAto help hold the line for us on the public option! He's having an online townhall on Wednesday, and I'd like you to ask him why Senators are so opposed to the public option when a majority of Americans are in favor of the public option to keep insurers honest and make health care affordable.
- You can ask President Obama this on Youtube here.
- You can even ask President Obama on Twitter with this hashtag #WHHCQ.
- You can go to Facebook and ask him questions there.
When you post a video response on Youtube with your own question, please LET us know that you've posted a video response question so that we can VOTE UP your video response question!
Here are the questions that should be asked of President Obama about the public option:
- Do you prefer the House Tri-Committee draft since the public option in it is stronger than the public option in the Senate bills?
- Why are employer group plans excluded from the public option, and why are people who currently have employer insurance forbidden from switching to the public option under the current language? They can't afford their insurance premiums which continue to skyrocket out of control, and their insurers keep denying them medical care, thus saddling them with medical bills they can't afford.
- Why are Democratic Senators so opposed to a public option that a great bipartisan majority of Americans support?
- Would you sign a weak public option that has a "seven-year or five-year trigger" into law for the sake of bipartisanship rather than a strong public option that's available on day one, is open to ALL Americans, and is everywhere with the power to negotiate rates with providers and pharmaceutical companies?
- Why are you allowing the public option to be weakened for the sake of bipartisanship when Republican Senators are completely opposed to the public option?
- Why does it have to be on a level playing field to be fair to private insurers? The public option is THERE to level the playing field for us Americans!"
- Would you support the Conrad co-op plan over the public option if it meant getting the bill through Congress in spite of evidence from health policy experts that shows that the Conrad co-op would NOT help cut health care costs for Americans?
If you've made a video response with one of these questions, such as #4, please let us know so that we can go over to Youtube and REC UP your video response! The video response with the most recommendations will be the one that is likely to be picked by the White House to answer.
Don't forget to crack the whip for the public option!Here are the principles of the Public Option Whip Tool because as Jane Hamsher says, we could have 105 Democrats today who support a public option, but we need 40 progressive Democrats who WILL vote against any bill that doesn't have a public option that is:
- Available nationwide
- on day one
- and accountable to Congress and the voters
We need to find out these 40 progressive Democrats in the House, and make them the power players in asking them to vote against any bill that comes out of the Senate, which would be Max Baucus's precious little Finance Bill, that doesn't include a strong public option. It's why I want you to use the Public Option Tool next week to call your progressive Members of Congress and find out where they stand. I want you to find out if they're holding district events so that you can go over there and ask them DIRECTLY about the public option, and come back to report about your experience! The public option is the line in the sand for me, and it needs to be the line in the sand for 40 progressive Democrats as well!
We can't let the White House twist the arms of our progressive Democrats to vote for a sham health reform bill, like what happened with Lloyd Doggett on the ACES vote, as Jane Hamsher pointed outthis morning. She further says:
We're headed for a bad compromise unless members of Congress know that there is safety in numbers, that their constituents are aware of what's going on and won't let their arms get twisted into betraying their districts. This is why we need to get them on the record. Now. They need to Take the Pledge to vote against any bill that doesn't have any health care bill if it doesn't include a public plan that is 1) available nationwide, 2) from day one, and 3) answerable to Congress and the voters.
Jay Inslee, who "guarded the doors" as an enforcer, is in a solid progressive district and could probably use some calls asking him to Take the Pledge. His office numbers are 202-225-6311 (DC), 206-361-0233 or 360-598-2342 in Seattle. His Chief of Staff is Brian Bonlender, who can be reached at 202-225-6311, and his Press Secretary is Christine Hanson, who is at 202-225-6311. His staff is also on Twitter.
Inslee and others need to know that we don't want the Doggett story replayed on health care.
Your calls are having a tremendous impact -- keep 'em coming.
Tell members of Congress to Take the Pledge.
Also, want to bring some serious local grassroots smackdown on Senators like Baucus, Wyden, Conrad, Lincoln , Landrieu, Hagan, and Feinstein? Let me tell you how we can do this. We're going to use President Obama's website, Organizing For America, to accomplish the greatest smackdown of all time this week.
I want you to sign up with Organizing For America this week. Once you've signed up with OFA, I'd like you to go to the Health Care Action Center and take a look around.
The most important tool we'll be using in the Health Care Action Center. will be the "Contact People Near You" phonebanking tool.
This is the action item agenda with the "Contact People Near You" phonebanking tool below:
- Sign up with Organizing For America.
- Go to the Health Care Action Center and click on the "Contact People Near You" phonebanking icon to the left of the screen, near the bottom of the page.
- Select your state from the drop-down menu. This is where the fun action comes in!
- Let's say, you select Montana from the drop-down menu. It takes you to a new webpage where it has a red icon that says "Make Calls Now" with a list of 25 supporters to call. It asks you to make a report after the call, and gives you talking points. In my opinion, these are weak talking points since it doesn't mention the public option, so I'll be fixing that a bit.
- So what we'll be doing is calling 25 people, asking them if they support President Obama's health care plan, which includes a public option to help keep private insurers honest. Then we'll tell them to call their Senators, such as Max Baucus, Conrad, Hagan, and others, to ask them to support the public option in President Obama's health care plan.
That's what we'll be doing---bringing down the grassroots smack-down at a local level by calling people in these Senators' states. Here are the talking points for each of the states below that you can use when calling supporters from your call list. I'll use Montana as an example first.
Montana
Hi, is [person's name] home? My name is [blank], and I'm a volunteer with Organizing for America, the grassroots organization formed to continue bringing the change we worked for during President Obama's campaign. How are you today? (Wait for response and make sure to engage in a conversational manner). As you might know, Organizing for America was formed after the campaign to support the President's agenda for change.
Recently, President Obama laid out the three core principles for real health care reform in America which has to reduce costs — such as rising health care costs which are crushing the budgets of governments, businesses, individuals, and families, and they must be brought under control. Secondly, real health care reform must guarantee choice in that every American must have the freedom to choose their plan and doctor – including the choice of a public insurance option which helps keep private insurers honest and lowers the cost of the monthly premiums that we pay. The public option will be available nationwide, available on day one, and is accountable to Congress and the voters.
Third, it must ensure quality care for all in that Americans must have quality and affordable health care. The need for action in reforming our health care could not be greater; the costs for premiums are rising 4 times the rate of wages and families and small businesses can no longer afford their existing health care plan. If health care reform is going to be passed it cannot wait another year. For American families, the status quo is unacceptable.
Do you support these principles for health reform? I also would like to ask you to call your Senator, Max Baucus, at (202) 224-2651 on Monday to ask him to support President Obama's health reform by helping pass a strong public option which keeps private insurers honest.
Here's the list of states that we should call that presently have Senators that are threatening to block President Obama's health reform, which includes a strong competitive public option to keep insurers honest. So, when you use the "Contact People Near You" phonebanking tool on OFA and use the generic talking points which I provided, I want you to choose one of these states to call and to have the phone number of the Senator ready on hand to give to the local person you're talking to when you ask that person to call his or her Senator to support the public option in President Obama's health reform bill.
California--Senator Dianne Feinstein (202) 224-3841
Louisiana--Senator Mary Landrieu (202) 224-5824
Montana--Senator Max Baucus (202) 224-2651
Nebraska--Senator Ben Nelson (202) 224-6551
North Carolina--Senator Kay Hagan (202) 224-6342
North Dakota--Senator Kent Conrad (202) 224-2043
Oregon--Senator Ron Wyden (202) 224-5244
Hope you'll be signing up with OFA this week to bring some serious smack-down at the grassroots level to these corporate Senate Democrats!
Here's a kossack, Vexed, who reported back about her husband's experience in using the OFA phonebanking tool:
This was my husband's experience calling 25 North Carolinians from the OFA list today:
"The people I spoke to were all uniformly in support of a true public healthcare option. More importantly, they were all angry with Sen. Hagan’s failure to support a public option. One person told me, “She’s on my shit list. I wrote her a letter and got a form response. Sure I’ll call her.” Another person said, “I’ll call her tomorrow and I’ll get my co-workers to call also.” If I reached voicemail, I left a message asking that they call Sen. Hagan on Monday.
Tomorrow I’m going to call Sen. Hagan’s office and let her know that I called 25 of her constituents this weekend and urged them to call her in support of a true public option. I’ll keep calling until she supports the public option. Yes we can."
Just imagine the impact that can be made if just 10 people here on Dailykos each call 25 North Carolinans, who in turn WILL be calling Senator Kay Hagan's office! That's 250 more North Carolinans that will be letting Senator Kay Hagan know by phone just how wrong she is to block a strong public option that Americans like you and me need.
Our kossack, nyceve, also wants us to help CALL Senators Olympia Snowe and Charles Schumer to tell them to stop backing the trigger for the public option! Tell Senator Schumer to stop compromising with the public option!
Senator Olympia Snowe
Phone: (202) 224-5344
Toll Free: (800) 432-1599
Senator Charles Schumer
Phone: (202) 224-6542
Please recommend this diary so others can see the phone numbers and call!