Reid Pressured on Public Option in Liberal Group’s New Ad

ABC News’ Teddy Davis reports:

A liberal group called the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) is launching a new television ad in Nevada pressuring Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to back a government insurance option as part of comprehensive health-care reform.

The ad features Nevada nurse Lee Slaughter. She says in the ad that she has seen insurance companies cut off care to patients in need — and says that in 2010, she will vote on only one issue: “I’m watching to see if Harry Reid is strong and effective enough as a leader to pass a public option into law.”

Watch it HERE.

The PCCC is the same organization which joined Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Fla., last week in delivering nearly 90,000 petition signatures to Reid’s office telling him to strip Democratic senators of plum committee assignments if they join a Republican filibuster on health care.

Reid’s office did not take too kindly to the petition.

“The only thing Senator Reid is worried about right now is putting together a bill that can get the 60 votes necessary to overcome a Republican filibuster,” Reid spokesman Jim Manley told the Washington Post last week. “He has no intention of stopping by” to receive the petition.

In its push for a public option, PCCC is taking advantage of the fact that Reid finds himself in a tough fight for re-election.

Last week, the Senate Majority Leader launched two television ads in Nevada more than a year before he faces the voters.

Republicans have not yet settled on a nominee against Reid.

Top GOP contendersinclude Sue Lowden, a former head of the state GOP who was the second runner-up for Miss America in 1973, Danny Tarkanian, the son of legendary UNLV basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian, and John Chachas, a wealthy investment banker.

The ad pressuring Reid on the public option was filmed over the weekend and will start airing Wednesday in the Las Vegas media market on both broadcast and cable.

PCCC, which has touted the ad in an email to 225,000 members, is setting an initial online fundraising goal of $100,000.

ABC News’ Rick Klein contributed to this report.

Key House Liberal: No Public Option, No Deal

ABC News’ Rick Klein reports: Amid the praise from Democrats for Sen. Olympia Snowe’s vote to help pass a health care bill from the Finance Committee, liberal members of both the House and the Senate remain concerned about the shape the health care bill is taking.

On ABCNews.com’s “Top Line” today, Rep. Raul Grijalva, the co-chair of the House Progressive Caucus, said he will join liberal colleagues in voting against any health care reform bill that doesn’t include a strong “public option” that would compete with private insurers.

“I venture to say that without a robust public option, a bill cannot get out of the House of Representatives,” said Grijalva, D-Ariz. “If that’s not in there, I can’t support it.”

Grijalva called it a “waste of time” to try to try to address the concerns of Snowe, R-Maine, when Democrats have the votes to pass a bill without any Republican support.

“Obviously it worries many of us a great deal that we’re going to basically write the legislation to cater to a vote or maybe two votes in the Senate on the Republican side,” Grijalva said. “The fact of the matter is I think at the end of the day there’s going to be unanimity among the Republicans, both in the House and in the Senate, to vote against any health care reform.”

“So I think it is a waste of time for the White House and to some extent for leadership to continue to cater to one vote, when in reality the best opportunity to pass it is [with] a solid, unified caucus of the Democrats pushing for reform with a robust public option.”

He rejected Snowe’s proposal that a public option be applied through a “trigger” mechanism, where it would kick into place only if the private sector doesn’t provide the savings Congress expects.

“The trigger will never occur. That’s our fear,” Grijalva said. “So the consequence of a trigger is effectively to kill a public option.”

Grijalva also said the White House has made a commitment to stakeholders to take up immigration reform next year, even though big legislative items are difficult to tackle in congressional election years.

“That is a commitment both in the political sense, and in a moral sense, that was made to many people. And I think the Latino community invested in hope in this election, and in overwhelming numbers to help his fine administration and this new Congress that we have in this country. I think they’re looking for a reciprocal response. And immigration reform is that response we want, that’s the commitment that was made.”

Click HERE to see the interview with Rep. Raul Grijalva.

We also chatted with Ana Marie Cox of Air America, who said liberals are frustrated after months’ of committee talks that were designed to draw the vote of a single Republican senator.

“We’re now crafting legislation to please a single person. One person. And that is tremendously frustrating,” she told us. “And if people can make that case to voters, I think they will be frustrated with that kind of negotiation, and hopefully the moderate Democrats will gain some spine.”

Watch the full discussion with Ana Marie Cox, including some our nominees for Least Powerful People in DC (in homage to GQ, which came out with its “most powerful” list this week), HERE.

High Noon for the Public Option in the Senate Tomorrow

ABC News' Jonathan Karl reports:

Tomorrow is high noon for the public option in the Senate.

I am told that Senators Chuck Schumer and Jay Rockefeller will force a roll-call vote tomorrow morning in the Senate Finance Committee on two amendments that would create a government-run insurance program – a top priority for liberal Democrats that was left out of the bill drafted by Finance Chairman Max Baucus.

The amendments are not likely to pass because they will be opposed by all Republicans, and at least four Democrats on the committee are cool to the idea of a public option (Lincoln, Carper, Conrad, Bill Nelson), but Schumer has been trying to negotiate with those Democrats to craft a version of the public option they could support.

If the amendments fail, it would appear the public option is all but dead in the Senate (although liberals will try to resurrect it when the full Senate takes up the bill).

UPDATE: Rockefeller and Schumer announced the vote last night, declaring “it's time for a debate on the public option.” But, it turns out, that time won't come until next week, because the Finance Committee is only working until noon today, giving Baucus & Grassley time to catch 2pm flights back home.

Liberals Pressing Obama On Public Option

ABC News’ Rick Klein reports: Leading liberal groups are ratcheting up pressure on President Obama to maintain his support for the public option — using some of Obama’s own words.

Today, MoveOn.org and the Progressive Change Coalition Campaign launched petition drives to urge the White House to keep the public option as part of the health care plan it’s pushing Congress to pass.

“The worst thing would be to pass a big reform bill that doesn't really change things,” MoveOn.org’s executive director, Justin Ruben, wrote his members in an e-mail.

“There's only one thing that's really going to cut costs, provide real security and peace of mind to the millions of Americans who are suffering, and take on the big insurance companies who have complete control of our system. That is the public health insurance option. During his campaign, President Obama often said that he believed that change had to come from the bottom up — not from the top down.”

The Progressive Change Coalition Campaign is asking former Obama campaign workers and volunteers to sign a petition urging the president to hold firm on a public option.

“We'll make sure the White House gets our message. In addition to delivering the signatures and personal notes from the petition page, we're planning an ad featuring the voices of those who sign,” the group wrote in an e-mail to members.

The drives are an indication of the liberal backlash the president is likely to face if — as expected — his list of demands next week does not include a public option.

For MoveOn.org, the letter-writing campaign comes a day after a bizarre, violent incident at one of the group’s vigils in California, where a 65-year old opponent of Democratic reform proposals had his finger bitten off.

UPDATE: Washington Post blogger Greg Sargent is reporting that a group of House liberals today sent a letter to President Obama reiterating their commitment to vote against any health care bill that doesn’t include a public option.

“Any bill that does not provide, at a minimum, a public option built on the Medicare provide system and with reimbursement based on Mediare rates — not negotiated rate — is unacceptable,” reads the letter, signed by Rep. Lynn Woolsey and Rep. Raul Grijalva, the leaders of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. “A health reform bill without a robust public option will not achieve the health reform this country so desperately needs. . . . We cannot vote for anything less.”

Govt. Insurance Option Under Attack

ABC News’ Teddy Davis reports:

As President Obama prepares to convene a health-care summit on Thursday, a conservative group has launched an ad campaign with the goal of defeating a government insurance option.

“My concern is that it would be too broad, too expensive, the government would underprice it and then drive everyone else out of the market,” Richard Scott, the head of Conservatives for Patients’ Rights, tells ABC News.

Creating a government insurance option that would operate alongside private insurers has emerged as a major flashpoint in the nascent health-care battle. Obama endorsed a public option during his presidential campaign and leading Democrats want to make sure that it survives.

“The thing that’s worth going to the mat over is the public entity because that is what the bill lives or dies on,” former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean told ABC News. “If the health insurance industry gets to write the bill, it will not be in there, and if that happens, we will not have done health reform.”

Conservatives worry that letting Americans enroll in a government insurance option would undermine private insurers because the government could set its reimbursement rate schedule below market prices.

Conservatives for Patients’ Rights is spending $500,000 on the first round of an ad campaign that includes cable television (Fox and CNN in Washington, DC), radio ads (Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity shows) and Web ads (FoxNews.com and Politico.com). More ads are expected to follow.

While the head of Conservatives for Patients’ Rights explains that his group wants to block a government insurance option from being enacted, the group’s first ad does not directly criticize such an approach.

Instead, it focuses on the positive principles of choice, competition, accountability, and personal responsibility; the “four pillars” it would like to see included in any reform package.

Watch the ad here.

ABC News’ Ferdous Al-Faruque contributed to this report.