After a year of debate, we finally passed the Senate health care bill – along with a package of important improvements – in the House of Representatives.

We made historic progress, but this fight isn’t over. Now we must put pressure on the Senate to take up every single one of our improvements to their bill.

Click here to sign my petition to tell the Senate to line up the final bill with the House’s version.

I know that, even with the fixes, this bill was not close to what many of us wanted. We didn’t get a chance to include a public option, even though I still believe it could have carried a majority in the Senate.

But I also believe that we could not afford to pass up this opportunity. The current bill will ensure that 32 million people without health insurance gain coverage. It will save $1.2 trillion. It will end the worst insurance company abuses. And it will create jobs at a time when we desperately need them.

This was not the best bill that we could have passed, but I am proud of what we achieved in the face of a Republican opposition that relied on the worst kind of lies and millions of dollars of insurance industry money poured through the halls of Congress.

We made historic progress, but this fight isn’t over. Now we must put pressure on the Senate to take up every single one of our improvements to their bill.

We know that Republicans and insurance companies will descend to the lowest levels of deliberate misinformation to block progress. Last night was a big defeat for the GOP obstruction machine, but we still have work to do, and I’m counting on you to help keep pressure on the Senate.

Click here to sign my petition to tell the Senate to line up the final bill with the House’s version.

Anthony

Yesterday’s Congressional Budget Office “score” shows the health care bill would be even better than expected at reducing the deficit.   If you’re serious about cutting spending, you have to be supporting this bill.

Sometimes it feels more like we’re playing a game of “Health Care Chutes and Ladders” – climbing forward one day, slipping back the next – but we’re getting near the top of the board.

To finish the job, I challenged 5,000 grassroots donors to show Congress that Americans want real reform.  I need your help to meet that goal before the health care vote this weekend.

Click here to rush a contribution to my campaign. Even as little as $5 will help us to reach our goal of 5,000 donors before the vote this weekend.

This bill will cut costs for everyone, protect the uninsured, and actually reduce the budget deficit.  And we’ve never been closer to getting it done.

Thanks for your continued support. I know I can count on you to help me build our voice for real, progressive reform during this weekend’s pivotal health care vote.

Anthony

Two hundred and ninety times in this Congress alone, the Senate has failed to act on bills passed by the House of Representatives. Can we really trust the Senate with the future of this health care bill that so many people are counting on?

In an attempt to finally move health care reform past the finish line, the powers-that-be are asking us to trust the Senate to do the right thing. We’re told that the House may have to pass the weaker Senate bill before the Senate can fix the many shortcomings of its initial plan.

I’m worried that the Senate is not ready for that kind of responsibility. Their original bill was too weak and didn’t do enough for the middle class families that are struggling to stay afloat. The Senate has yet to show enough mettle to make the necessary changes to their current bill to make this the kind of reform that the majority of Americans want and are counting on.

We’ve heard that a majority of senators want a public option. Now the real challenge will be making sure those sensible voices do not get overpowered by the obstructionist Republicans.

Anthony

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