 |
On Tuesday, a number of Democrats in the Senate Finance Committee joined all of the Republicans in voting down three public option amendments. While the public option can still pass on the floor of the Senate, we won't win this fight if Democrats continue to give bipartisan cover to Republican obstructionism. As the President of the United States, as a leader of the Democratic Party and as an individual elected by the votes of millions of Americans fundamentally dissatisfied with the status quo, President Obama has tremendous political power to influence Democratic Senators. Remember, President Obama says that he is in favor of a public option to keep insurance companies accountable. In addition, an overwhelming majority of Americans à ‚¬" including a plurality of Republicans according to a recent poll à ‚¬" supports a public option. Yet Republicans continue to treat health care reform as a political football and have said that they want reform efforts to fail in order to damage Obama politically. If that's not enough, their absurd and outrageous lies about death panels have demonstrated that Republicans aren't interested in a serious policy debate. We know that Republicans will do anything it takes to defeat the public option, including using the filibuster in an attempt to prevent the full Senate from considering it. But Republicans lack the ability to sustain a filibuster in the Senate on their own. So any Democrat who joins a Republican filibuster of the public option would be validating and enabling bad faith Republican obstructionism. In doing so, any Democrat who joins a Republican filibuster on the public option will be working to ensure that no meaningful reform passes any time soon. Thank you for working to build a better world.
Matt Lockshin, Campaign Manager
|
