The biggest problem with the public option opt-out idea is that it would deny the public option to those people who need it most. Most of the states with the highest percentage of uninsured residents tend to be Republican states.

The top ten states with the highest percentage of residents without health insurance in 2008 were, in order:

I wanted to turn to the two IG Reports Glenn Fine did on the PATRIOT Act’s Section 215, the section that allows investigators to get business records and other tangible items. (2007 report covering 2002 to 2005; 2008 report covering 2006)

Although we were required to review calendar years 2002 through 2004 in this first review, we elected to include data from calendar year 2005.

Serious people have been taking labor unions to task for opposing the insurance excise tax, explaining why it makes sense for the Baucus health reform bill to tax high-end insurance plans. Yglesias has helpfully reduced the main policy argument to this:

There’s no good reason for the tax code to privilege compensation taken in the form of health insurance over compensation taken in the form of money.

30 Senate Democrats today signed a letter to Majority Leader Reid ($), urging him to include a “robust, Medicare-like public option” in the bill he brings to the floor of the Senate:

“We have spent the better part of this year fighting for health reform that would provide insurance access and continuity to every American in a fiscally responsible manner,” the 30 Democratic Senators wrote in the Oct.

Yesterday, grassroots union leaders came to Washington, D.C., to deliver nearly 50,000 letters from people asking—pleading—their senators to listen to their stories and pass health care reform that’s affordable, includes a public option, doesn’t force working families to pay more than we are already, holds insurance corporations accountable and requires employers to pay their fair share.

Omar Khadr has served seven years in detention without any legal end in sight.

Jebby is a little miffed that people keep holding W. responsible for, like, wrecking the country.

We are launching POP today as an advocacy organization with these goals:

1. Reframe the debate in human terms — health care is a human right.  This is fight against bloodless corporate interests and the cost is human lives.  We need to say that.
2. Reach out beyond the hard-core political audience to young people who are inspired to shape their future
3. Advocate, as Eve has done for years, for those who have been abandoned by the medical industrial complex
4. Hire a lobbyist to be on Capitol Hill to fight the battle on an ongoing basis where it will continue, day in and day out, long after a health care bill has passed
5. Win the passage for a public option now.  With the knowledge that it’s just the beginning. 

The art for the campaign was designed by Justin Kemerling, who was one of the artists featured in Shepard Fairey’s Manifest Hope exhibit.  In the coming days, we’ll be announcing an art contest and with celebrity judges and featuring YouTubes of musicians, artists and ordinary Americans demanding a public option.  We’ll be taking up the cause of those, like Nataline, whose lives are considered acceptable losses in the quest for corporate profits.  

Marshall Ganz recently said that progressive health care activists need to engage the public and to take to the streets.   “I don’t know a single significant social change accomplished in this country that hasn’t involved civil disobedience at one time or another,” he recently told Laura Flanders.  In the past week, people in Minnesota and in Philadelphia have engaged in nonviolent civil disobedience and were arrested to demonstrate their commitment to this cause.  And last night, many watched as Keith Olbermann made a passionate, personal, hour long plea for health care reform. 

It’s in the air.  People are ready for it.  Please visit POP at publicoptionplease.com and let us know what you think. You can buy stickers designed by Justin, or donate and receive a special signed,  limited edition poster he designed for the campaign.  The proceeds will go to fund POP’s ongoing campaign to achieve health care for all.

Looking through the CBO letter about the Baucus bill, there is one striking fact that most of the media is overlooking. The CBO claims in the report that they did not score the full bill. They admit to completely ignoring a huge provision that is projected to reduce the cost of the bill by roughly $44 billion, but would deprive millions of Americans of health insurance.

And go say “hi” to Eve on her POP diary this morning.  As I said, we’ll have more later.  But this is where this battle has to go in order for it to become a movement that can achieve universal health care, not just a short-term political battle.  Her heart, and the heart of those who are willing to get arrested because they believe passionately in social justice for all, is the thing that will carry us to victory in the battle for universal health care.