Dear Secretary Sebelius,
We write to you concerning your recent comments about the public option in health insurance reform.
We stand in strong opposition to your statement that the public option is “not the essential element” of comprehensive reform. The opportunity to improve access to healthcare is a onetime opportunity. Americans deserve reform that is real-not smoke and mirrors. We cannot rely solely on the insurance companies’ good faith efforts to provide for our constituents. A robust public option is essential, if we are to ensure that all Americans can receive healthcare that is accessible, guaranteed and of high-quality.
To take the public option off the table would be a grave error; passage in the House of Representatives depends upon inclusion of it.
We have attached, for your review, a letter from 60 Members of Congress who are firm in their Position that any legislation that moves forward through both chambers, and into a final proposal for the President’s signature, MUST contain a public option.
"The letter... is signed by House proressive leaders Raul Grijalva, Lynn Woolsey, and Barbara Lee," Sargent writes. "The letter’s unequivocal: Five dozen House Dems say, No public option, no support. Yet House leaders, according to The Hill, are still 'betting that liberals will relent, unwilling to be responsible for defeating Obama’s top priority in his first year in office.'"
Sounds like a lousy bet to me. A bill without a public option isn't actually reform -- not in any meaningful sense, anyway. Voting against it would basically be voting against nothing. With a single-payer system (Medicare for all) ruled out from the get-go, reform is in every literal sense the public option or nothing.
1 comments:
Awesome!
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