countdowntohealthcare.com

As I recently told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, “It takes a great woman to build a barn, but any jackass can kick it down.”

That’s how I described the battle for health care and the role Fox News is playing. (They are not the “great woman,” by the way).

Yesterday I told Fox News directly that enough is enough with their misinformation campaign on health care. I told the hosts of Fox and Friends straight out that shows like theirs have featured lies and distortions about health care.

The reason some extremely popular and common sense health care reforms have been ruled off the table is precisely because we’re fighting off an obstructionist Republican Party on one hand and a misinformation campaign by Fox News on the other.

They tried to resist, but I refused to let them off the hook. Fox and Friends spent months talking about death panels and the miles of other health care lies that Republicans and opponents have spun.

We cannot continue to let Fox get away with this. Our future depends on this debate being about truth, not Fox’s agenda.

“The Republican Party is a wholly owned subsidiary of the insurance industry.”

That’s what I said on the House floor this afternoon.

The Republicans squealed like pigs and immediately demanded that my words be “taken down” as they say in the House. But they can’t say it’s not true.

House ethics rules prevent me from posting video here, but you can see the whole thing at Firedoglake.

I have never met a single Republican who is not a wholly owned subsidiary of the insurance industry. But as for me, I’m not owned by anyone.

To prove it to the Republicans and special interest, I’m organizing 2,000 grassroots donors to stand up and show them that we won’t back down, and they can’t silence us.

Click here to make a contribution and fight with me for the public option. Even as little as $5 from you will help make our voices heard.

I’ve been saying all along – We have to stop making concession after concession to win Republican votes. We haven’t won over a single person from the other side.

That’s why I’m so pessimistic about tomorrow’s health care summit. We know the Republicans won’t bring any real ideas for reform.

But just in case the Republicans thought they could tap dance their way through the summit without getting called on their baloney, I’m going to be live-blogging all day at Daily Kos.

Many of us are growing more anxious by the day that the negotiations to put the House and Senate health bills together will make too many compromises in favor of a Senate bill we know is weaker than the one passed in the House.

But there’s a limit to how many compromises we can accept before the health care bill becomes a reform bill in name only. That’s why I will oppose the final bill unless it represents a genuine improvement on the Senate bill.

I believe that the bill we passed in the House, though not perfect, would have been a major step forward in providing all Americans with quality, affordable health care that guarantees choice, and competition through a public option. Unless the final bill looks more like what we passed in the House, and less what we saw emerge from the Senate, I will not support it.

Do you agree? Cast your vote in the poll on this page and let me know what you think.

Anthony

Just after 7 AM this morning, the Senate helped health care reform take another major step forward when it passed its health care bill on a 60-39 vote.

Not a single Republican supported the bill. Ultimately, it was Democrats who were standing up to an unsustainble and nation-bankrupting status quo.

With bills now passed in the House and the Senate, we’ve made historic progress on health care reform. But this is not yet the bill that we want. The Senate erred in not including the cost control that comes with the public option.

And while there’s work to be done, the differences between us seem narrow compared to the differences we have with Republicans, who – to a person – fought for months to defend the health insurance industry.

But this process is far from over. Now a conference committee will negotiate and put the House and Senate bills together. I’m going to work hard for a final bill that improves on what the Senate passed today.

The public option has been left for dead before. I’m committed to fighting for the House position and restoring this vital tool.

We took a great leap today, but there is still work to be done to achieve the reform we need.

Anthony

This afternoon The New York Times and other news outlets reported that Senator Lieberman was backing away from his own health care proposal, in part because I liked it.

If this wasn’t so sad, it would be amazing. Here you have the most important legislation for millions of Americans’ health and welfare, and apparently Senator Lieberman backs away from his own proposal. Why? Because I and a professor at Yale like it.

All I can say charitably is I hope Senator Lieberman looks into his heart and does the right thing. This is not the time for anyone to act for politics, but to do the right thing. Let’s be clear, this is an idea Senator Lieberman has proposed, repeatedly. That others embrace it should not be the criteria for leaders to make decisions. It would be tragic if this is what it appears, a decision based on hurting proponents of reform not helping the millions who need affordable health care coverage.

Some may say reformers should never have praised this measure. But that suggests we all agree to live in an Alice in Wonderland world of saying the opposite of what we mean. Now is the time to talk and act on the merits of an issue. Now is the time for leaders to make the right choices, not political calculations.

Anthony

Put this one in the “obvious” category. Today’s papers reveal that the health insurance industry is not happy that reform is moving (inching?) closer by the day.

Well, if that pig isn’t squealing, we are probably doing something wrong.

Health insurance companies make money when they take in as much as they can and pay out as little as they can. Their shareholders demand profits, not necessarily high quality health care.

That is why we need some force to compete with them that is not driven by profits. We need the public option.

A commentator recently introduced me as the “health insurance industry’s least favorite person.”

I can live with that.

Anthony