countdowntohealthcare.com

This is the beginning of the end.

After a year of debate, we finally passed the Senate health care bill – along with a package of important improvements – in the House of Representatives.

We made historic progress, but this fight isn’t over. Now we must put pressure on the Senate to take up every single one of our improvements to their bill.

Click here to sign my petition to tell the Senate to line up the final bill with the House’s version.

I know that, even with the fixes, this bill was not close to what many of us wanted. We didn’t get a chance to include a public option, even though I still believe it could have carried a majority in the Senate.

But I also believe that we could not afford to pass up this opportunity. The current bill will ensure that 32 million people without health insurance gain coverage. It will save $1.2 trillion. It will end the worst insurance company abuses. And it will create jobs at a time when we desperately need them.

This was not the best bill that we could have passed, but I am proud of what we achieved in the face of a Republican opposition that relied on the worst kind of lies and millions of dollars of insurance industry money poured through the halls of Congress.

We made historic progress, but this fight isn’t over. Now we must put pressure on the Senate to take up every single one of our improvements to their bill.

We know that Republicans and insurance companies will descend to the lowest levels of deliberate misinformation to block progress. Last night was a big defeat for the GOP obstruction machine, but we still have work to do, and I’m counting on you to help keep pressure on the Senate.

Click here to sign my petition to tell the Senate to line up the final bill with the House’s version.

Anthony

Health care opponents don’t have any more excuses.

Yesterday’s Congressional Budget Office “score” shows the health care bill would be even better than expected at reducing the deficit.   If you’re serious about cutting spending, you have to be supporting this bill.

Sometimes it feels more like we’re playing a game of “Health Care Chutes and Ladders” – climbing forward one day, slipping back the next – but we’re getting near the top of the board.

To finish the job, I challenged 5,000 grassroots donors to show Congress that Americans want real reform.  I need your help to meet that goal before the health care vote this weekend.

Click here to rush a contribution to my campaign. Even as little as $5 will help us to reach our goal of 5,000 donors before the vote this weekend.

This bill will cut costs for everyone, protect the uninsured, and actually reduce the budget deficit.  And we’ve never been closer to getting it done.

Thanks for your continued support. I know I can count on you to help me build our voice for real, progressive reform during this weekend’s pivotal health care vote.

Anthony

Fool us once? Shame on you. Fool us two hundred and ninety times? Shame on us.

Two hundred and ninety times in this Congress alone, the Senate has failed to act on bills passed by the House of Representatives. Can we really trust the Senate with the future of this health care bill that so many people are counting on?

In an attempt to finally move health care reform past the finish line, the powers-that-be are asking us to trust the Senate to do the right thing. We’re told that the House may have to pass the weaker Senate bill before the Senate can fix the many shortcomings of its initial plan.

I’m worried that the Senate is not ready for that kind of responsibility. Their original bill was too weak and didn’t do enough for the middle class families that are struggling to stay afloat. The Senate has yet to show enough mettle to make the necessary changes to their current bill to make this the kind of reform that the majority of Americans want and are counting on.

We’ve heard that a majority of senators want a public option. Now the real challenge will be making sure those sensible voices do not get overpowered by the obstructionist Republicans.

Anthony

Socialist. Death panels. Downright evil. Those are just some of the talking points Sarah Palin uses to describe the Democrat’s health care plan. Well, I wonder if she was quite so outspoken when she was in Canada receiving medical attention?

She said that her family used to go to Canada to get medical care when she was growing up. And she admitted that she found that “kind of ironic now”. Well, it’s more than ironic, it’s downright hypocritical.

It’s time we stop letting Republican propaganda define our health care policy.

Click here to stand up for the public option by signing our petition. Everyone deserves a chance for better health care, like Sarah Palin received as a child.

I’m tired of seeing this debate framed by Republicans like Palin, who are more interested in protecting the health insurance companies than they are in bringing better health care coverage to millions of Americans.

It’s time to fight back.

Click here to stand up with millions of Americans for the public option by signing our petition on countdowntohealthcare.com.

Anthony

Whether you’re making a contribution, reading countdowntohealthcare.com, sending Facebook messages, or joining me in our online chats, grassroots supporters from red and blue states have overwhelmed me these past months with their steadfast support for our campaign to keep the public option alive.

Eric Seader from New York creatively remixed my floor speech where I called the GOP what they are: wholly owned subsidiaries of the health insurance industry. I got such a kick out of his remix that I thought I would pass it along to you. Let’s just add it to our “Public Option” playlist on Itunes.

Use the player below to listen to the remix of “Wholly Owned” now:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Right-click to download (1 MB MP3)

Anthony

I said it on Wednesday, and I’ll say it again: the Republicans really are just a wholly owned subsidiary of the insurance industry.

Thursday’s summit proved it: They want to destroy Medicare, shovel money to insurance companies, and screw over the American people.

First we let the Gang of Six make the rules, then we let Olympia Snowe and Joe Lieberman have their turn.  It got us nothing!

We need to let the majority make the rules. The public option passed in the House and it’s time to force a vote in the Senate.

I liveblogged the summit at Daily Kos to make sure a strong pro-public-option voice was heard.  Thousands of netroots activists joined my call to action and I want to thank everyone who took part.

Click here to read my liveblog of Thursday’s health care summit. Don’t tell John Boehner what I wrote about him.

In response to the clear influence of insurance industry lobbying at Thursday’s summit, I’ve set a goal to organize 2,000 donors to show that people are willing to stand up to the special interests and “do nothing” Republicans.

Thanks to the generous outpouring of grassroots support, we’re blasting through our goal. In the spirit of raising expectations in Washington, I’ve set a new goal 2,500 donors.

Click here to rush a contribution to my campaign and join my fight for the public option. We’re close to reaching our ambitious goal and even as little as $5 from you will show the Republicans that they won’t scare us into submission.

A majority of Americans support the public option.  The President supports a public option.  A majority of Democrats in the House of Representatives support the public option. And thousands of supporters–from red and blue states–are standing with me at countdowntohealthcare.com.

So why are we negotiating with a bunch of obstructionist Republicans and trying to appease Joe Lieberman?  I can’t count a single vote this strategy has brought us.

It’s time to govern like a real majority and get things done for the American people.  I hope you’ll join my call to action.

Click here to rush a contribution to my campaign and join my fight for public option.

Anthony

I’m glad to see that the President is providing some long awaited leadership on health care.  I have been asking him for months to talk directly to Americans about what he believes we need out of health care reform.

The good news is that the President’s plan improves the weak Senate bill.  But I am concerned that it embraces a state-by-state exchange system rather than a national one.  And it walks away from the public option, which we know is essential to genuine cost containment.

Let’s be honest: Republican support will never materialize.  They are the Party of No and have stood clearly on the side of big insurance companies from the beginning of this process—without once offering a single constructive proposal that would lower costs and improve the quality of care for everyone.

We need to stop bargaining against ourselves and aim for a plan that can get 51 votes, not 60.  Worrying about Olympia Snowe, Joseph Lieberman and Ben Nelson didn’t get us anywhere.  I think the President’s approach is a step in the right direction.

Anthony

What will it take for my colleagues to understand that we can’t let 41 senators be a majority?  A report released today found that the five largest for-profit health insurance companies made record profits in 2009.  How?  By dropping millions of customers.

All the posturing in the world about bipartisanship doesn’t change the fact that today’s news was largely cheered by Republicans and lamented by Democrats.

And for all their talk of an alternative proposal, we know that Republicans favor a status quo approach that lets big health insurance companies get away with anticompetitive and abusive practices.  That will only mean more rising premiums and more dropped customers.

If we want to see a change, we need the Democratic majority to take back the reins on health care policy.  That’s what a majority is supposed to do.

Anthony

What do health insurance companies do anyway?  That’s the $145 billion a year question.  That’s how much money goes each year towards profits and overhead to insurance company executives and shareholders.  Not for check-ups, not for vital procedures, not for health care.

For the 45 million Americans who get health care through Medicare, the overhead isn’t 30 percent.  It’s about 1 percent.  That’s all.

So why not open Medicare to everyone? Simple.

That’s why over 145,000 of you have joined this fight by signing-up here at CountdowntoHealthCare.com.  Many have heard our voices, but some have continued to stand in our way.

It’s time to follow what the President said yesterday on health care: “We’ve got to get it done.”

Stand with me in this fight.  Together we will win.

Anthony