Health Care For America Now

Yesterday we wrote about a campaign coordinated by Health Care for America Now, Democracy for America, and Open Left to ask senators where they stand on a public option. Thanks to the work of grassroots activists who have emailed their senators, we're starting to hear back.

At Open Left, Chris Bowers writes that Sen. Feingold supports the public option.

After some uncertainty about where Sens. Hagan and Bingaman stand on the public option, Jane Hamsher spoke with Sen. Bingaman's office, where she was told the Senator "supports a strong public option."

And reader MC pulled a number of quotes on health care from the websites of Sens. Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor of Arkansas; unfortunately these quotes don't include direct statements regarding the public option.

We hope you'll get involved with this campaign, because it's already yielding important results. Here's Chris Bowers' summary of the campaign in case you missed it yesterday:

No more dodges. No more vague, open-ended responses. We need every member of the Senate–main obstacle to reform–to answer four questions on the public option:

Do you support a public healthcare option as part of healthcare reform?
If so, do you support a public healthcare option that is available on day one?

Do you support a public healthcare option that is national, available everywhere, and accountable to Congress?

Do you support a public healthcare option that can bargain for rates from providers and big drug companies?

As activists and as constituents, answering these questions are the minimum they owe us. We are entitled to specific, clear, written responses to all of these questions.

Email–don't call, but email–these four questions to your Senators now. Make it clear that you want a written response to all four questions. There needs to be as little room for interpretation as possible. The Senate is going to be the biggest hurdle on health care, as it has proven to the biggest hurdle on all legislation in 2009. That is where we must focus our pressure.

When you receive a response, post it on this webpage. We are going to collect all of the responses to find out where every member of Congress, but especially the Democratic members, stand on the public option. It is only with this information that we can prevent backroom deals that will sell us out to insurance companies.

If they don't respond, we will keep emailing until they respond. If they dodge the questions and don't provide specifics, then we will keep emailing until they do. If we keep the pressure up, they are going to have to respond eventually.

It is about time that every Senator make their position clear. We are entitled to responses. Email your Senators today.

With several responses already just in the first day, we're excited to keep going on this project. We hope you'll get involved!

[UPDATE 1:41 PM]: My Left Nutmeg lets us know where Connecticut's senators stand on the public option - Sen. Dodd supports it and Sen. Lieberman opposes it.