publicoptionorbust.org

Obama's Speech on 09/09/09

So.....Tonight's speech should be a big one. Will he put up a fight for the Public Option? Will he throw in the towel and say it's not essential for health care reform? I suspect it will be somewhere in the middle, but I'm still holding onto my hope that he will invoke Ted Kennedy's name and start calling it TediCare. He's capable of giving some of the most inspiring speeches of this generation. Kennedy was his friend and mentor. This is the most important issue his presidency will face and he has a better opportunity than any other recent president to make health care accessable and affordable to almost every American. It's a perfect storm.

This speech won't be the moment that defines this struggle that has gone on since Harry Truman was in office, but it has a chance to be a moment in history when the pressure on the office of the president and every member of congress to make health care available to all Americans will start a dramatic rise. The Public needs to DEMAND the Public Option and to create the political pressure neccesssary to make being against health care reform political suicide.

This struggle didn't begin this year, and the war is far from over, but we can and we must win the battle for the public option soon before thousands, if not millions more go bankrupt as slaves to the insurance and pharmacuetical industries.

Bill Moyers message to Obama: No More Mr. Nice Guy

PBS

Bill Moyers, PBS - Sept. 4, 2009

Let's get on with it, Mr. President. We're up the proverbial creek with spaghetti as our paddle. This health care thing could have been the crossing of the Delaware, the turning point in the next American Revolution — the moment we put the mercenaries to rout, as General Washington did the Hessians at Trenton. We could have stamped our victory "Made in the USA." We could have said to the world, "Look what we did!" And we could have turned to each other and said, "Thank you."

As it is, we're about to get health care reform that measures human beings only in corporate terms of a cost-benefit analysis. I mean this is topsy-turvy — we should be treating health as a condition, not a commodity.

Watch the Video

Kennedy's legacy: Dreams that never die, hopes that never surrender

The Hill

By Brent Budowsky - 08/28/09 07:05 AM ET

Chris Matthews is wrong. Kennedy's legacy will advance again with a mobilization for the public option on the healthcare bill in September, not whispered hints of a Democratic surrender with a progressive president and large majorities in Congress.

Ted Kennedy often said that his greatest mistake was when President Richard Nixon offered a sweeping healthcare reform that was bolder than any president had ever offered, including Democratic presidents, and Kennedy turned down the offer. Kennedy knew that his greatest mistake was not reaching for too much when the opportunity was offered, but for accepting too little when the moment that Nixon offered was at hand.

Kennedy said that sometimes a great party must sail against the wind. Kennedy was a leader in the Senate in breaking filibusters against civil rights bills, calling the legacy of his brother to the service of the high cause of equal justice under law.

Read the whole story

The Public Option: Tedicare for All!

Fire Dog Lake

By: Phoenix Woman Thursday August 27, 2009 11:46 am

So, now that we've established that what Max Baucus and his insurance-industry buddies want is not what Teddy Kennedy wanted, the question is: What did Teddy Want?

We've already established that, too: Single-payer, or "Medicare for all". But since he couldn't get that, he compromised by backing the inclusion of a strong public option in whatever legislation came before Congress. HR 3200 has it. So does the Senate HELP Committee bill. But nothing that Big Bucks Baucus backs has a public option of any sort, much less a strong one.

Read the whole story