Reid's Manager's Amendment to the Senate Health Care Bill contains

a. no public option,
b. no Medicare buy-in - and
c. a back-door version of the House's Stupak Amendment - that would effectively block abortion coverage in the health insurance exchanges and would probably result in its being dropped from most private plans as well.

(See NOW's bulletin: http://www.now.org/lists/now-action-list/msg00416.html)

If the liberals and progressives who elected Obama are to have any credibility, we must act to block this deeply flawed bill unless it meets bare minimum standards of doing more good than harm.

I am calling Kerry and Kirk (866-338-1015)and urging them to make clear that they will vote against this bill unless either a. or b. (or both) is included, and unless c. is removed. They must make it clear to the leadership that either no public option and no buy-in or removing abortion coverage is a deal-breaker.

The Blue Dogs need to understand that they will be running next time as candidates of the party that couldn't pass the health-care bill we promised - because of them - unless they back down. They've been playing "chicken" with us long enough; it's time to call them on it.