Here are the FDL Action health care highlights for Friday, October 23.1. Jon Walker asks, "Is the President fighting to kill the public option just to please Snowe?" Walker adds, "The fog is starting to clear, and we will soon know where Obama really stands." [Note: This evening, Marc Ambinder reported that "The White House is denying reports that officials are pressuring Sen. Harry Reid to scale back the scope of the "public option" that'll be attached to the Senate health insurance bill."]
2. Jane Hamsher believes that Harry Reid is "covering up [a] secret filibuster" and "allowing members of the Democratic caucus to threaten a filibuster behind closed doors." Hamsher concludes, "If Harry Reid is cutting secret deals in smoke-filled back rooms to water [the public option] down, he’s not credible as anything other than Wellpoint’s hatchet man until he names names."
3. Jon Walker says that "[f]or a Republican, Olympia Snowe seems to have a real disdain for states’ rights when it comes to health care reform." Specifically, Walker charges that Snowe's "opposition to the idea of state-based public options is a massive federal government encroachment into state matters," especially given that there is "nothing currently stopping states from creating a public plan today." That's a good point, one I hadn't thought of before.
4. David Dayen reports that Rep. Raul Grijalva of the Progressive Caucus says the House is currently about 6-7 votes short of the 218 needed to pass a bill with a robust public option. Getting closer and closer...c'mon, guys, you can do it! :)
5. Jon Walker points out that "[h]ealth care reform will not start until 2013," and that "Democrats really need to break the news to the American people, or it is going to get really ugly." Seriously, whose brilliant idea was it to pass health care reform but not let it start until after the next presidential election?!?
6. Jon Walker writes that "Democrats who are against the robust public option are basically stealing $1,400 from the pockets of each working class American family." Walker adds, "If a Democrat wants to fight against helping working class American families save roughly $1,400 a year they should be forced to do so publicly" and not "[hide] behind anonymous whip counts." But, but, but...that would be so democratic, small "d"! (snark)
7. Finally, David Dayen brings us a hilarious bit of musical parody, courtesy of "the group 'Billionaires for Wealthcare' as they crashed the AHIP (America’s Health Insurance Plans) conference today." Check it out, but make sure you don't have any milk in your mouth or hot soup on your lap when you do. :)
