The Progressive Change Campaign Committee doesn’t feel like compromising on the public option, regardless of what Democrats in the Senate say is required to pass a health care reform bill. In an email sent to its membership today, the PCCC calls the new compromise plan unveiled last night “outrageous” and urges pro-public option members of the Senate to reject it.
The group again calls on Democrats in the Senate to abandon their goal of getting 60 votes to pass reform and instead use the reconciliation process to push a public option past its Senate opponents on both sides of the aisle. From the email:
The Senate has the right to pass a bill with 51 votes — but to avoid offending Republicans, Democrats haven’t used it. That’s just weak.
The group is targeting Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Roland Burris (D-IL), Russ Feingold (D-WI) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH) — who the PCCC says have “said in the past they’d only support a strong public option” — with a petition drive calling on them to reject the compromise and hold out for a public option.
Earlier today, Feingold suggested he hasn’t made up his mind about the compromise yet.
The PCCC progressives have come too far to compromise away a public option now. The group claims the new bill will do the most harm to one of President Obama’s strongest constituents:
And after President Obama got elected with an outpouring of young people, this “compromise” has provisions that leave anyone under age 55 behind — and actually creates perverse incentives for insurance companies to deny young people care.
