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

[grantcart]

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

[Vincardog]

1. Thank you for signing up K & R

[NYC_SKP]

2. You don't say.

I hope it's true, there are a number of voices of dissent that may have to STFU.

A little.

:kick:

PS, Petition signed. Thanks, grantcart.

.

[MNDemNY]

6. Yes, dissent is sooo Un-American!

[grantcart]

8. lol you are free to dissent from the Public Option Kennedy wanted enacted

and that puts you in the same pool as Michelle Bachman and Orinn Hatch.

[MNDemNY]

9. You mean the Opt-out PO that will only be available to a tiny handful of Americans at a huge cost?

That one?? LOL indeed.Ted would be appalled.

[Sebastian Doyle]

10. The so-called "Teddy Kennedy" bill really was more the "Chris Dodd and his wife" bill

...by the time it passed the committee. The real Ted Kennedy bill of 2007 would have been much better.

Of course it is marginally better than the Baucus piece of shit bill, so I suppose that's somewhat positive.

But we already know that Orrin Hatch is going to Stupak the thing, and Harry Reid will be under orders from "the Prophet" and the Holy Quorum of 12 in SLC not to stand in the way of his Mormon brother, so God only knows how butchered this bill will be from its already compromised state, in the end.

[Undercurrent]

3. Done. Thanks for the link.

I'm totally puzzled by the response of many on DU to this bill by folks who claim to be total supporters of Teddy's life long health care dream coming true on the other. It's like many of the shocked and disappointed responses to a particular Obama policy when he made it clear where he stood during the primary and general. They don't seem to paying attention to much of anything, but rather grabbing a headlines or talking points and freaking out. Just for the sake of freaking out.

[JTFrog]

4. K&R

[depakid]

5. One last chance to see if the leadership can enforce even this meager bit of discipline

The amazing thing is that the "Democratic" Senators really have no choice here. The Republicans have imploded. Where are they going to go? Independent?

Yet I wouldn't lay odds much less bet on it happening. And since no one is afraid of this milquetoast administration retaliating over anything, that would be where any credible threat of accountability would have to come from.

[Cha]

7. Kick for petition signing later.

[grantcart]

11. kick