I Called Congress to Save Health Care And You Can, Too!

I just called Dina Titus' Las Vegas office on HR 3200, the House health care bill. The staffer told me that since Rep. Titus is currently out of the country, she could not say whether or not Dina would take the pledge for the public option. She said that Dina Titus supports a strong public option, but hasn't yet made up her mind on what conditions she will place on her vote for any final health care bill. Nonetheless, I also wrote her an email to make sure the office knows that we're looking for answers. I also sent a copy of this to Harry Reid.

Hello, Rep. Titus. I first want to thank you for clarifying your thoughts on health care reform earlier this month with local Democrats. While I still disagree with your take on the original "millionaires' tax" that wouldn't affect 98.5% of residents here in the 3rd District, I'm glad you will now consider a revised "millionaires' tax" and other smart efforts to fund health care reform.

I also want to ask you to do something meaningful to ensure we have a good bill. You have previously promised to support a strong public option in the health care bill that will give us the consumers a real choice for what kind of coverage we want. I hope you will continue this commitment by taking this pledge to ensure we have the right to choose a public plan.

Conservative politicians, the HMOs, and the drug companies shouldn't be able to take this choice away from us. It should be our choice on what plan we want. I hope you will keep fighting for us and for our right to choose the kind of health insurance we need.

As I said last night, this is non-negotiable. Progressives already compromised by backing down on single-payer and agreeing to this public-private hybrid. Kent Conrad and Chuck Grassley and the Blue Dogs and the GOP/HMO/Pharma spin machine can huff and puff and lie their pants on fire all they want, but they must not be allowed to shove their "faux-reform" down our throats!

Please keep bugging Shelley Berkley, Dina Titus, and Harry Reid until they keep their promise to support a pro-consumer health care bill with a real public option.