The Final March for Reform is going strong — yesterday, OFA supporters made the phones ring off the hook in Congressional offices on Capitol Hill and across the country. But for every member of Congress, there are eight anti-reform lobbyists swarming Capitol Hill — and the upcoming vote is still too close to call.

So in these crucial, final days, we must make sure the voices of constituents break through the lobbyist attacks. And here’s the plan to make it happen:

As the next step in the Final March for Reform, OFA supporters like you will be gathering at volunteer phone banks across the country. We’ll be calling supportive voters in critical districts nationwide, asking them to reach out to their representatives and express their strong support for reform. A local OFA organizer will be on hand at every event, and no experience is required.

Here’s how to join in: First, RSVP for an event near you — there’s one in Houston, on March 13th. Before you go, make sure to invite friends to come with you, or help them find an event in their area on our website. Then join with local supporters at your event and reach out to as many voters as you can — each call makes a vital difference.

RSVP here to get started. Here are the details for the event nearest you:

What: Final March for Reform Phone Bank
Where: 1102 Pinemont Dr. #I
Houston, TX 77018
When: Saturday, March 13th
12:00 PM

Can’t make it to that event in Houston? Click here to search for other events near you.
As we speak, insurance-industry lobbyists are deploying from their emergency base at the D.C. Ritz-Carlton, banging down the door of every Congressional office on Capitol Hill to derail reform and preserve their ability to jack up premiums and deny care to those in need.

In the old Washington, that would have been an unstoppable barrage.

But thanks to your unprecedented organizing, the lobbyists have finally met their match: the American people.

So let’s get out there, and make sure the people’s voice is heard.

Please sign up to join the Final March for Reform event in Houston, on March 13th:

http://my.barackobama.com/FinalMarch-RSVP
Let’s finish this,
Jeremy
Jeremy Bird
Deputy Director
Organizing for America

Meet the people who are percolating in the Coffee Party

By Jessica Ravitz, CNN March 12, 2010 10:17 a.m. EST

Atlanta, Georgia (CNN) — In one chair sits a rural retiree, his financial security shot in the slump, a humble Southerner who’s never thought much about politics. In another seat is a born Northerner, an inner-city native, a relative of a civil rights giant. And nearby, circling a table, are an economist, an artist, a onetime John McCain supporter and a long-haired guy who’s rich in Woodstock memories.

Meet these members of the Coffee Party Movement, an organically grown, freshly brewed push that’s marking its official kickoff Saturday. Across the country, even around the globe, they and other Americans in at least several hundred communities are expected to gather in coffeehouses to raise their mugs of java to something new.

They’re professionals, musicians and housewives. They’re frustrated liberal activists, disheartened conservatives and political newborns. They’re young and old, rich and poor, black, white and all shades of other.

Born on Facebook just six weeks ago, the group boasts more than 110,000 fans, as of Friday morning. The Coffee Party is billed by many as an answer to the Tea Party (more than 1,000 fewer fans), a year-old protest movement that’s steeped in fiscal conservatism and boiling-hot, anti-tax rhetoric.

This new group calls for civility, objects to obstructionism and demands that politicians be held accountable to the people who put them in office.

"The government has become so broken that the will of the people has been lost in the political game," said Stacey Hopkins, 46, coordinator of the Atlanta, Georgia, chapter. "And the only voices you’re hearing are the ones of those who are screaming the loudest. They have a right to their views, but they don’t have the right to speak for all Americans."

CONTINUED

Meet the people who are percolating in the Coffee Party – CNN.com

You have to see this video.

On Tuesday thousands of everyday people performed a citizens’ arrest on the insurance companies who were meeting in Washington, D.C. to plot to kill health care reform. I’ve never seen so much energy in a crowd before. You have to watch!

It’s getting down to the final push for health reform.
The House is preparing to pass the health care bill the Senate passed in December, along with a package of improvements to that bill. Those improvements will then be sent to the Senate for an up-or-down vote, with the goal of having President Obama sign both bills by the end of the month.

The House may vote on these bills as early as this coming week, and the vote is going to be close. Many Representatives will try to take the side of the insurance industry instead of the side of the American people. It’s up to us to make sure they hear what America wants – real health care reform, now!

Can you pledge to make as many calls as it takes to your Representative, urging them to vote YES on health reform? Click here to pledge and tell as many friends as you can.

The health care package being considered by Congress isn’t everything we wanted. But the bills will do a world of good for everyone in America. Here’s how:

• If you have insurance, you can keep it. But insurance companies won’t be allowed to spike premiums every year and will have their profits and administrative expenses subject to federal and state scrutiny.²
• If you lose your coverage or need to buy insurance on your own for any reason, insurance companies won’t be able to deny you coverage and they can’t charge you more because you’re sick or because you’re a woman. If you get sick, your insurance company won’t be able to cancel your insurance retroactively like they do today. Preventative care will be free and young people can stay on their parent’s insurance policy until they are 26. And small businesses and individuals will be offered steep subsidies so everyone can afford coverage.³
• Insurance companies will no longer be able to sell junk insurance. If you’re buying insurance on your own, insurers will have to offer plans with a standard comprehensive benefit package, they will be required to spend 85% of your premium dollars on your medical care, they will no longer be able to cap your benefits, and your out-of-pocket costs will be limited – severely reducing their profits and bad practices.
• And, if you’re uninsured, you will be able to purchase insurance you can afford. In all, 30 million uninsured will get good coverage, saving an estimated 30,000 lives per year.

In addition, the fixes being put to an up-or-down vote will dramatically cut back the burden of the so-called "Cadillac tax" on working families, increase subsidies so everyone can afford insurance, and fully close the Medicare donut hole for seniors.

There’s a lot to support in these bills, and the staus quo is unacceptable.

Click here to pledge to call your Representative as much as it takes until they vote YES on health reform.

If these bills fail, if we lose this chance for health reform, we won’t get it again for decades. If these bills fail, if we let the insurance companies win, the insurance industry will get to continue on with business as usual.

We’ve come so far, and these bills do so much good for so many. We can’t turn back now.

It’s time for Congress to choose which side they’re on: Will they listen to us and pass health reform? Or will they listen to the insurance companies and doom America to more needless deaths, bankruptcies, and denials of care?

Click here to pledge to call your Representative as many times as it takes and make them take our side.

We’re at the finish line. Only a few more votes are left. Let’s win this thing!

To your health,
Levana Layendecker
Health Care for America Now

The second-ranking Democrat in the Senate said on Friday that he would "aggressively" rally votes for a public option for insurance coverage if House Democrats included the proposal in their reconciliation fixes for health care reform.

In a letter to the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Sen. Dick Durbin’s spokesman Joe Shoemaker made it "crystal clear" that his boss favors efforts to get a government-run insurance plan into law. But, echoing remarks the Illinois Democrat made to the Huffington Post, Shoemaker writes that the onus lies with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

If House Democrats include a public plan in the reconciliation bill they craft to "fix" the Senate’s legislation, Durbin will work hard to make sure the provision (as part of the reconciliation package) has the votes for passage. If it’s not in that reconciliation package, he won’t lift a finger. In fact, he will work against efforts to add it as an amendment.

"Sen. Durbin and the rest of the Senate Leadership will be aggressively whipping FOR the public option if it is included in the reconciliation bill the House sends over," Shoemaker wrote in an email that he authorized PCCC founder Adam Green to make public. "Conversely, the Leaders will whip against any attempt to alter or amend the bill if the public option is not in it (or as your email says — whip against adding the public option as an amendment in the Senate.)

"The reason is simple. There can be no amendments – good or bad – to the reconciliation bill once the House passes it and sends it to the Senate. The House will not do step one (passing the Senate healthcare bill in the first place) if they do not have assurances that the fixes they want (i.e., the fixes in their reconciliation bill) will be passed unchanged by the Senate."

Shoemaker continued: "I believe the progressive community’s best hope of seeing a public option in the healthcare bill is to lobby members of the House to include it in the reconciliation bill they send to the Senate and to continue to get senators to pledge their support for it."

Shoemaker’s email reflects a fairly strict reading of how Democrats are prepared to approach both reconciliation and the public option. The party is set on promoting one package of fixes to the bill and ignoring all other amendments, which Republicans have pledged to offer on topics from immigration to abortion. This means that if the public plan is going to survive, it will have to originate with Pelosi’s fixes in the House.

Story continues below

At this point, there hasn’t been much focus on whether Pelosi is considering adding that measure to her reconciliation bill. While the House passed a public plan in its initial legislation, the White House has made it clear they don’t want it in the final package. But Green and allied groups are mounting a campaign pressuring her to take Durbin’s bait. PCCC, Democracy for America and Credo launched a campaign on Friday targeting the speaker with online ads and phone calls.

"The fate of the public option is now in Nancy Pelosi’s hands," read a joint statement from the three groups. "The votes and the leadership are there in the Senate, and the public option will live or die based on Nancy Pelosi’s next moves. She’s been a hero on this issue in the past, and we hope that she steps up at this historic moment."

BELOW IS SHOEMAKER’S FULL EMAIL TO GREEN

Adam –

I hope you are setting all 1 million people straight. Here’s the truth and I hope you start spreading it:

The House needs to take up and pass (without amendment) the senate-passed health care bill. (The reason that’s important is that if the bill is amended in any way, it will need to return to the senate where we no longer have 60 votes to pass any kind of health care measure. If that happens healthcare reform will languish on the vine.)

Next, the House needs to write and pass a reconciliation bill that includes important fixes to the health care bill mentioned above. Senator Durbin is hopeful that one of those fixes is inclusion of a public option and has urged the House to include it. He has in fact pledged to support the public option if its included in the reconciliation bill and he will do so.

I want to be crystal clear: Sen. Durbin and the rest of the Senate Leadership will be aggressively whipping FOR the public option if it is included in the reconciliation bill the House sends over. Conversely, the Leaders will whip against any attempt to alter or amend the bill if the public option is not in it (or as your email says – whip against adding the public option as an amendment in the Senate.)

The reason is simple. There can be no amendments – good or bad – to the reconciliation bill once the House passes it and sends it to the Senate. The House will not do step one (passing the Senate healthcare bill in the first place) if they do not have assurances that the fixes they want (i.e., the fixes in their reconciliation bill) will be passed unchanged by the Senate.

I believe the progressive community’s best hope of seeing a public option in the healthcare bill is to lobby members of the House to include it in the reconciliation bill they send to the Senate and to continue to get senators to pledge their support for it.

Instead of calling out senators like Durbin who have staunchly supported and fought for progressive principles to be included in the health reform bill, people need to look at what is possible and what is lost by actions like this.

It is possible right now, to pass a healthcare bill that curbs many of the worst practices of health insurance companies (pre-existing conditons; must carry; lifetime/annual caps on coverage; gender discrimination, etc.)

It is possible right now to pass a healthcare bill that will ensure health insurance for 31 million people who today have no insurance (94 percent of all Americans would be covered).

It is possible right now to pass a healthcare bill that rewards doctors for practicing good medicine rather than rewarding them for ordering more tests and protects the quality of medical care offered to patients.

It is possible right now to pass a healthcare bill that will start bending the cost curve so that we slow the outrageous escalation in the cost of healthcare and eventually start bringing prices down. And there are literally hundreds more examples like that.

All of these vital and important things will not come to pass if we make one provision – the public option – the only thing we fight for. It must be balanced against all the other items as well.

It seems to me that the history of progressive reform in America is replete with examples of incremental reform (components that we today think of as essential in Medicare, Social Security, Civil Rights, etc were all added years – in somes cases decades – after the origin
al bill was passed). Why is healthcare so different? Why does it all have to be done here and now?

The truth is no one thinks the final healthcare bill will be perfect. But it will do far more good than harm. And it will provide a platform on which to build.

So that’s what Durbin will be whipping for – passage of an imperfect but good bill. And he could use your help rather than accusations of betrayal.

Joe Shoemaker
Communications Director
Sen. Dick Durbin

Dick Durbin: I’ll Whip ‘Aggressively’ For A Public Plan If Pelosi Includes It

This is the reason why their base is so misinformed. It is not that most on the Right are selfish ideologues, it is that their leaders are a disservice to them. We must help them to new real leaders and informed resources.

Update on reconciliation

by David Waldman

Fri Mar 12, 2010 at 06:45:58 AM PST

Republicans have been lying about reconciliation being the "nuclear option" for weeks. So it should come as no surprise that CQ (subscription) now reports:

Republican aides, reporting the decision, interpreted it to mean the House would have to clear the Senate bill and President Obama would have to sign it before the reconciliation bill could be passed. House leaders had been hoping that the two bills could be passed almost simultaneously.

The parliamentarian, however, later reportedly clarified his position to Senate aides, saying that the reconciliation bill could be written in a way that would not require Obama to sign the Senate bill into law before the reconciliation bill is voted on.

Thank you, and have a pleasant day.

If you don’t have a CQ subscription, for now you’ll have to settle for Politico’s story:

[A]ccording to reporting by POLITICO’s David Rogers, the accounts aren’t accurate and misconstrue what the Senate parliamentarians have said. That is that reconciliation must amend law but this could be done without the Senate bill being enacted first. "It is wholly possible to create law and qualify law before the law is on the books," said one person familiar with situation.

For example, if the big bill itself amends some Social Security statute, reconciliation could be written to do the same –with changes sought by the House. Then if reconciliation is passed and signed by President Barack Obama after he signs the larger bill, the changes made in reconciliation would prevail.
This jives with what Pulse sources were saying soon after the first wave of stories hit – in essence, don’t take the reported parliamentarian’s declaration to the bank.

CONTINUED

Congress Matters