Jim Dean - Senate HC Bill PO "almost the exact same" as Kennedy's HELP bill [View All]

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First, the good news: Senator Harry Reid has finally presented the text of the merged Senate bill and started procedures to pass the first set of votes as soon as this weekend. The public option is in the bill as promised and, even better, it has not been further weakened -- instead it's almost the exact same as the version passed by the late Senator Ted Kennedy's H.E.L.P. Committee earlier this year.

The bad news is that it only takes one Senator from the Democratic Caucus to support a Republican filibuster and kill the whole bill. To make it worse, Republicans are expected to filibuster the bill at every step in the processes so there will be many chances for betrayal by a turncoat in the Democratic Caucus.

Today's the day we need to deliver our message loud and clear.

If ANY member of the Democratic Caucus joins a Republican filibuster of healthcare reform with a public option, the Caucus must immediately strip that Senator of all Committee Chairmanships.

Since we launched this campaign just three weeks ago, MoveOn members have joined us in demanding accountability. Now, we're merging our campaign with signatures gathered by our friends at CREDO Action and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee too and together we're ready to deliver signatures for 410,649 Americans today.

Here is the link to join the petition http://www.democracyforamerica.com/activities/254