Sen. Harry Reid (credit: TalkRadioNews via Flickr)

It looks like Harry Reid is getting ready to sell out the labor unions, the progressive community, the Democratic base, and the majority of the American people. The vast majority of Americans want a public option as part of health care reform. Reid fully has it within his powers to get a health care bill passed with a public option. He could use reconciliation to pass a bill with a simple majority. He could even use the “nuclear option” to eliminate the silly filibuster, like Bill Frist threatened to do only a few years ago.

Reid will likely secure the 60 votes he needs to bring his bill to the floor, but today Blanche Lincoln and Mary Landrieu joined Joe Lieberman in threatening to filibuster the bill if it had a public option. If Reid thinks their threats are for real and actually plans to deliver on his promise to get a public option, he should not have brought the bill to the floor. Weeks of debate in regular order would be a waste of time. Reid should be using reconciliation right now.

There is only two possible conclusions:

• Reid thinks Joe Lieberman, Mary Landrieu, and Blanche Lincoln are bluffing. He believes that in the end when he stand up to them they will fold. (Given Reid’s track record I would not be holding my breath for that)
• Reid is planning to sell out the American people who overwhelming support the public option. He is planning cripple the public option with a trigger or remove it all together. He will do this all to win the vote of a handful of senators he does not need. They will be given not only veto power over health care reform, but over every issue the progressive community cares about.

If Reid is not willing to do everything in his power to stand up for the vast majority of American people who support the public option, why should the Democratic base do anything to stand up for Harry Reid?

Reid has been possibly laying the groundwork for this betrayal for a while now.

Here you can see the horrible choices facing someone who came for the Little Rock health fair: do I see a doctor about the Stage-Three cancer diagnosis I got seven years ago that bankrupted me, or do I try to see a dentist about the immediate and agonizing pain from this abscessed tooth?

Vicki Hansen’s real worry seems to be: “Will I be able to see a cancer doctor AND a dentist today, at this appointment I’ve been waiting days for?” Should an Arkansan with a Stage-Three Cancer diagnosis that bankrupted her have to wait seven years for a free health fair to arrive in her city in order to get followup care?

And when the health care arrives, should she really have to worry whether she can see a cancer screening doctor for the first time in seven years, or the dentist about her terrible tooth pain?

Should any American really be subjected to this kind of treatment?

Blanche Lincoln, are you listening? Your constituent Vicky Hansen has this to say to you about health care reform: “I think they should help us… they don’t know what it’s like! Wait until someone tells them they have been denied. Wait until they deny you, tell you that you can’t have health insurance, that you are not worthy.”

Arkansans feel less than, unworthy, ashamed, and embarrassed that they can’t get health care. These are your constituents.

Are these the people you’ll deny Public Option?

Arkansans who speak with our Eve at the Little Rock health fair today are embarrassed that they can’t afford to go to the dentist or the doctor. They seem almost ashamed that they don’t have the finances to pay for health insurance.

We have, horribly, created an entire class of Americans who feel that they need to apologize for not having the money to meet Big Health and Big Insurance’s incessant demands for premiums and fees that have risen faster than wages or inflation. This is an awful development — no one should be apologetic for being unable to stay healthy.

The fault is with this awful system, as today’s health fair clearly demonstrates. And yet every one of the people interviewed by Eve today has conveyed to me, via body language and tone, that they feel the fault lies with them. This is wrong. This is not what America is about. This must change.