I sat in on a conference call with firedoglake contributor Jon Walker yesterday. I learned quite a bit I didn't know. I haven't been paying quite as close attention once it passed the House. Furthermore, I'm now confident that Senators Klobuchar and Franken will vote for a public option if it's in the bill so from a MN angle, this isn't really a story for MPP.
However.
What does pass could have a huge impact on our lives here in Minnesota.
If you have specific questions about what's going on, please say something in the comments and I will get an answer for you.
For those of you following the healthcare reform efforts in Congress, we are getting really close. The problem now is getting past the Republican filibuster in the Senate and four Democrats who have indicated they might or would stand with the Republicans and with the insurance companies and against us.
Now that the sausage-making process is in the Senate and our Senators, Franken and Klobuchar, are on board, I usually can only watch with a mix of powerlessness, fear and disgust. But SEIU has created a way to make a difference.
The Senate is introduced its health care reform bill yesterday, and only four fricking members of the Democratic Senator caucus are standing in the way of passage. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana are the only four remaining "Democratic" Senators who have not ruled out joining with a Republican filibuster of health care reform.
What the #%@*!?!
What's worse, these four don't really give a rat's a$$ what you think, even though their vote affects you. Unless you are a resident of Arkansas, Connecticut, Louisiana or Nebraska, as far as they are concerned, you might as well live on Pluto.
Fortunately, Open Left is teaming up with SEIU to do something about it. Even if you do not live in Arkansas, Connecticut, Louisiana or Nebraska, SEIU has developed activist tools that allow you to contact voters in those four states, and tell those voters to tell their Senators to get on board with health care reform. Fight back and make a difference--sign up and tell one, or all four, of these "Democratic" Senators to pass health care reform with a public option:
"If the Canvassing Board declares a winner, that should be our senator," she said, even if a court challenge were to follow. "[The Senate] could seat a senator pending the litigation."
Of course expectations are that Franken will be the one eventually certified by the Canvassing board following the counting of the rejected absentee ballots. There is precedent for this course of action, after the 1996 Louisiana Senate race the Republican controlled Senate seated the Democratic winner, Mary Landrieu, while they investigated claims by Woody Jenkins of widespread fraud, eventually they confirmed Landrieu's election.
This Friday is the deadline for election officials to submit improperly rejected absentee ballots to the Secretary of State and if everything goes as scheduled, by Monday the 5th we should know more about the nature of those votes.
