She said that her family used to go to Canada to get medical care when she was growing up. And she admitted that she found that “kind of ironic now”. Well, it’s more than ironic, it’s downright hypocritical.

It’s time we stop letting Republican propaganda define our health care policy.

Click here to stand up for the public option by signing our petition. Everyone deserves a chance for better health care, like Sarah Palin received as a child.

I’m tired of seeing this debate framed by Republicans like Palin, who are more interested in protecting the health insurance companies than they are in bringing better health care coverage to millions of Americans.

It’s time to fight back.

Click here to stand up with millions of Americans for the public option by signing our petition on countdowntohealthcare.com.

Anthony

Eric Seader from New York creatively remixed my floor speech where I called the GOP what they are: wholly owned subsidiaries of the health insurance industry. I got such a kick out of his remix that I thought I would pass it along to you. Let’s just add it to our “Public Option” playlist on Itunes.

Use the player below to listen to the remix of “Wholly Owned” now:

Right-click to download (1 MB MP3)

Anthony

That’s how I described the battle for health care and the role Fox News is playing. (They are not the “great woman,” by the way).

Yesterday I told Fox News directly that enough is enough with their misinformation campaign on health care. I told the hosts of Fox and Friends straight out that shows like theirs have featured lies and distortions about health care.

The reason some extremely popular and common sense health care reforms have been ruled off the table is precisely because we’re fighting off an obstructionist Republican Party on one hand and a misinformation campaign by Fox News on the other.

They tried to resist, but I refused to let them off the hook. Fox and Friends spent months talking about death panels and the miles of other health care lies that Republicans and opponents have spun.

We cannot continue to let Fox get away with this. Our future depends on this debate being about truth, not Fox’s agenda.

Thursday’s summit proved it: They want to destroy Medicare, shovel money to insurance companies, and screw over the American people.

First we let the Gang of Six make the rules, then we let Olympia Snowe and Joe Lieberman have their turn.  It got us nothing!

We need to let the majority make the rules. The public option passed in the House and it’s time to force a vote in the Senate.

I liveblogged the summit at Daily Kos to make sure a strong pro-public-option voice was heard.  Thousands of netroots activists joined my call to action and I want to thank everyone who took part.

Click here to read my liveblog of Thursday’s health care summit. Don’t tell John Boehner what I wrote about him.

In response to the clear influence of insurance industry lobbying at Thursday’s summit, I’ve set a goal to organize 2,000 donors to show that people are willing to stand up to the special interests and “do nothing” Republicans.

Thanks to the generous outpouring of grassroots support, we’re blasting through our goal. In the spirit of raising expectations in Washington, I’ve set a new goal 2,500 donors.

Click here to rush a contribution to my campaign and join my fight for the public option. We’re close to reaching our ambitious goal and even as little as $5 from you will show the Republicans that they won’t scare us into submission.

A majority of Americans support the public option.  The President supports a public option.  A majority of Democrats in the House of Representatives support the public option. And thousands of supporters–from red and blue states–are standing with me at countdowntohealthcare.com.

So why are we negotiating with a bunch of obstructionist Republicans and trying to appease Joe Lieberman?  I can’t count a single vote this strategy has brought us.

It’s time to govern like a real majority and get things done for the American people.  I hope you’ll join my call to action.

Click here to rush a contribution to my campaign and join my fight for public option.

Anthony

“The Republican Party is a wholly owned subsidiary of the insurance industry.”

That’s what I said on the House floor this afternoon.

The Republicans squealed like pigs and immediately demanded that my words be “taken down” as they say in the House. But they can’t say it’s not true.

House ethics rules prevent me from posting video here, but you can see the whole thing at Firedoglake.

I have never met a single Republican who is not a wholly owned subsidiary of the insurance industry. But as for me, I’m not owned by anyone.

To prove it to the Republicans and special interest, I’m organizing 2,000 grassroots donors to stand up and show them that we won’t back down, and they can’t silence us.

Click here to make a contribution and fight with me for the public option. Even as little as $5 from you will help make our voices heard.

I’ve been saying all along – We have to stop making concession after concession to win Republican votes. We haven’t won over a single person from the other side.

That’s why I’m so pessimistic about tomorrow’s health care summit. We know the Republicans won’t bring any real ideas for reform.

But just in case the Republicans thought they could tap dance their way through the summit without getting called on their baloney, I’m going to be live-blogging all day at Daily Kos.

The good news is that the President’s plan improves the weak Senate bill.  But I am concerned that it embraces a state-by-state exchange system rather than a national one.  And it walks away from the public option, which we know is essential to genuine cost containment.

Let’s be honest: Republican support will never materialize.  They are the Party of No and have stood clearly on the side of big insurance companies from the beginning of this process—without once offering a single constructive proposal that would lower costs and improve the quality of care for everyone.

We need to stop bargaining against ourselves and aim for a plan that can get 51 votes, not 60.  Worrying about Olympia Snowe, Joseph Lieberman and Ben Nelson didn’t get us anywhere.  I think the President’s approach is a step in the right direction.

Anthony

This blog post can also be found on FireDogLake here.

I want to extend a warm thank you to everyone who voted for me in FDL’s “Fire Dog of the Year” contest. The FDL Fire Dog label is one I will wear proudly as we continue to march forward on health care, the economy, and the many ways that we are working together to create real and lasting change in America.

I’ll never back down from telling the Republicans where they can shove all their filibusters because health care reform strikes the very heart of so many challenges our nation is facing.

You can join me in this fight at CountdowntoHealthCare.com where you can find updates on our progress, learn about what I’m doing to keep the fight alive, and can sign my petition to keeping working for real reform.

Every year, we spend $145 billion on insurance company overhead and profits. That’s not money we spend on better care or vital procedures—it’s money we send straight to insurance company executives and shareholders.

As we face an economic crisis on one hand and rising governments deficits on another, this is money we should be saving and investing—not wasting on insurance companies. We’re only going to get back on track when this annual $145 billion goes back to American families who are struggling, back to the small businesses who drive our economy, and back to lowering government deficits.

But, as you know, we can’t truly contain health care costs until we introduce much needed competition to the insurance industry.

There is more than one way to do this. I’ve fought hard for a single-payer system like Medicare, because it shows that you can achieve better results than insurance companies with only 1 percent overhead. But I’ve also fought for common sense reforms like the public option or the Medicare buy-in—solutions that have been blocked by a broken Senate process that makes a majority out of the 41 senators who don’t want real health reform.

Thanks to the support of you all here at FDL and everyone at CountdowntoHealthCare.com, I believe we can win this fight.

I may count no friends in the insurance industry, but I’m grateful for the help of people like you–people who know real health care reform is long overdue. I’m not going to give up as long as you stand with me.

Anthony

All the posturing in the world about bipartisanship doesn’t change the fact that today’s news was largely cheered by Republicans and lamented by Democrats.

And for all their talk of an alternative proposal, we know that Republicans favor a status quo approach that lets big health insurance companies get away with anticompetitive and abusive practices.  That will only mean more rising premiums and more dropped customers.

If we want to see a change, we need the Democratic majority to take back the reins on health care policy.  That’s what a majority is supposed to do.

Anthony