When the House passed its version of health reform legislation last week, the development may have sent chills down the spines of those who oppose the Democrats’ proposed solutions. But a quick read-through of Suzy Khimm’s piece in The Treatment yesterday should be equally chilling to folks who think the battle over health reform is anywhere close to being over.

Khimm’s piece should serve as an eye opener to anyone who might suggest that Harry Reid is padding his schedule when he says a Senate bill won’t pass until Christmas – at the earliest. (Other Dems are saying even that is optimistic.)

For as much as talking heads keep pointing out that Reid needs 60 votes in the Senate to stop a filibuster, what hasn’t been talked about much is the fact that Reid needs 60 votes at least three times in this process: 1) for a “motion to proceed” (a vote that could happen as early as Tuesday) 2) for a vote to move past a Republican “point of order,” and 3) for a final vote on passage of the bill.

That final vote happens only after debate on the bill’s amendments – and there are likely to be many introduced by Republicans. But that’s just the beginning of opposition stall tactics that could well include the reading of the entire bill aloud on the floor, as threatened already.

Reid’s work, Khimm points out, will be “heavy lifting.” We think that’s putting it lightly.

We think Reid’s going to need some steroids.

For a political proposal that appeared ready to be staked in the heart by its opponents just weeks ago, the public option looked surprisingly perky this week. In fact, the only thing that now sounds optional about the proposed reform initiative is the abundance of public option options being floated.

The perkiness is due, of course, to the latest poll from ABC and the Washington Post, which showed that 57 percent of American surveyed supported a government-sponsored insurance option. The news could hardly have been better for proponents, unless you consider that even MORE Americans – 76 percent of those polled – said they’d support the idea if it would be limited to folks who can’t get affordable private health insurance.

Sensing that the tide of public opinion is turning, advocates of a public option have turned up the volume on demands that it be included in the bill that will be voted on by the full Senate. Sen. Harry Reid, who’s working behind closed doors to marry the Senate Finance and HELP Committee versions of reform legislation, indicated that he WOULD include a public option in the bill. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pledged ardently that a “robust public option” is still on the table for the House of Representatives, at least.

Some media also reported that the White House, feeling the heat from the red-hot poll results, finally signaled that it would support a public option – with an opt-out clause. But other media say the White House hasn’t drawn any lines in the sand just yet.

Who in Congress has pledged their support or opposition to the public option or versions of  a public option so far? Here’s a snapshot.

• House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, vocally.
• Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Florida) says all states need a public option.
• Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-Louisiana) says, “I’m not for a government-run, national, taxpayer-subsidized plan, and never will be.”
• Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Florida), the sole Republican to cross the aisle and vote for the Senate Finance bill, says she’ll vote again a public option and could support a filibuster. She’s also said she’d consider an option only if it had a trigger mechanism.
• Sen. Charles Schumer (D-New York) wants Sen. Harry Reid to include a public option in legislation and force opponents to strip it out.
• Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Connecticut) says he opposes a public option “right now.”
• Yesterday, Rep. John Larson (D-Connecticut), said the House had the votes to pass a robust public option.
• Sen. Roland Burris (D-Illinois) says he’ll oppose any health reform bill that does NOT include a public option.
• Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Arkansas) says she’s “ruled out a government-funded and a government-operated plan.”
• Sen. Max Baucus (D-Montana), says the option is still ‘alive’ but said a “pure option” may not get the 60 votes it needs to survive the Senate floor.
• Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Nebraska), says “it depends on what the public option is.”
• These 55 Republicans strongly oppose a public option (though they have their own “public option.” )
• Sen. Tom Harken said last week that he had counted 52 Democratic Senators who supported the public option and five who did not.

A column by Thomas Frank in the Wall Street Journal made us pause and scratch our heads this week because it prompted one of those questions that we think lots of Americans must be asking themselves. The question is simply this:

Are President Obama and his Democratic Party up to no good in this health reform battle?

[Conservatives: Insert "Obviously!" here.]

The question, more specifically, might be “Is President Obama trying to turn the government into a predator?” or “Would the passage of a public option be a predatory move by government?”

[Conservatives: You can again insert "Obviously!" here.]

Phrase it however you like. As the WSJ column points out, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) – who has been up to his hip waders in the health reform battle – said last week that a public option turns the government into a predator. And Sen. John Thune, (R-SD), has apparently agreed.

‘I know you are but what am I?’

The WSJ’s Frank thinks those two legislators have it backwards. Could be he right?

After all, what seems more predatory? A government insurance option, the stated purpose of which is to increase competition with private industry to drive insurance costs down for all consumers? or “actuarial-minded hardliners of the insurance biz, the ones who deny your claim or cancel your policy?”

We understand the concept of a “predatory government.” It’s a government that stands back and watches as the foxes of private industry feed on the hen house of American citizenry. We’ve seen it happen when corporations sucked the economic lifeblood of the nation through no-bid defense contracts. And we’ve seen it happen when, as Frank points out, the government used a prescription drug benefit to herd millions of Americans into the waiting arms of the pharmaceutical industry.

The “predator state,” Frank writes, materializes “when consumer protection, worker protection, environmental protection, and policing against fraud are handed over to lobbyists. And when health care is run for the benefit of private insurance companies, whose business model . . . is to target coverage on the healthy and delay payments to the sick.”

Keys to the hen house?

So is a public option “predatory?” We don’t think so. But we agree with Frank that without a public option, Congress may be putting its efforts into getting all of our hens in one hen house – and then committing the most predatory act imaginable: handing the foxes the keys.

Fundraising scorecard

Political contributions from the health industry:
Grassley: $2.9 million (despite the fact Iowans support a public option)
Thune: $1.2 million

In 1974, President Nixon tried to put one right down the middle for health care reform. Now, 35 years later, President Obama seeks those same modest but important reforms.

Students of history may get a chuckle when they hear Republicans define Obama’s health care plan as “socialism.”  If we look to the past, we see Obama’s plan is pretty much in line with Republican President Richard M. Nixon’s failed efforts in 1974.

Like Nixon, Obama seeks to tweak America’s existing private health care system, rather than replace. Like Obama, Nixon sought to simply make access universal, put more emphasis on preventative care, limit out-of-pocket expenditures and ensure that Americans would not go bankrupt because of a catastrophic illness.

Read Nixon’s plan for health reform, in his own words and you’ll see that opposition to Obama’s similar plan, if any, should be coming from his own party and not the Republicans. In fact, some of it is: Democratic House members have been threatening to not support any health care reform that does not include a public option.

The so-called public option is, Obama says, but a sliver of his overall health care plan; only five percent of the population would have access to it, and only a subset of that would choose it. Obama has readily telegraphed his willingness to drop it in exchange for bipartisan support.

The Republican opposition to Obama’s modest health reforms appears to be more politics than true opposition to the plan’s elements. After the losses it experienced in the last election, the only way the party out of power can see to regain strength is to deny the President any victories. As Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) has famously said “If we’re able to stop Obama on this it will be his Waterloo. It will break him.” The Republicans risk being seen as cynical, as polls show most Americans believe they are not making a good faith effort to work with Obama on health care.

By not over-reaching on health care, the young President seeks to move America one step closer to a country where no one dies because of lack of access to health care, and no one goes broke because they get sick.

The old saying goes that “only Nixon could go to China.” Perhaps health care will be Obama’s China.

RELATED: See this YouTube clip on Nixon’s and Ted Kennedy’s competing health care plans in 1974.

When we went to the polls last fall, middle America voted for an end to partisan bickering and for our elected representatives to confront issues together in a practical, common sense way.

For better or worse, that’s what we got at the Oval Office: “No Drama Obama.”

In his address to Congress last week on health care reform, we say the President hit the ball straight down the middle — and dare we say, perhaps even a little to the right.

Conservative health reform

The plans Obama outlined were conservative in that they were designed to preserve America’s unique for-profit health care system. We’re the only developed nation that allows insurance companies to make money off health care.

Obama admits it isn’t the perfect way to design a health insurance system. He agrees with many in his party that a better way would be to go the single-payer route, where the government replaces private for-profit companies as the middleman between patient and doctor.

But, the President argues, that would be too disruptive to the nation. Health care accounts for a sixth of our gross national product. Better to tweak the current system — to make it work better for all — he reasons.

Obama would improve our system by stopping the two biggest abuses by the for-profit insurance industry. The industry currently cherrypicks the most healthy individuals, and then often looks for reasons to drop those individuals’ coverage when they need it most: at the time they file a claim. The President’s  plan would make both practices illegal.

By making these rules apply to all companies, the President would maintain a level playing field for all competitors. By mandating that all citizens have insurance, he makes it affordable by increasing the size of the pool so that those with medical problems are a smaller part of the whole, thus driving prices down.

Even more for conservatives to like

The President has added even more plan requirements that should have conservative support:

• No coverage for illegal aliens
• No federal dollars to fund abortions
• No Medicare funds diverted elsewhere
• Not one dime added to the deficit, now or ever.

Sadly, it seems his opponents have no interest in seeing any reforms pass, preferring to see this President fail instead of helping him solve a problem facing not only the 50 million Americans without insurance, but also the other 250 million who are already insured. As he points out, these folks are one premium increase away from being insured or one serious illness away from going bankrupt.

TV commentators last week described the President as being “the adult in the room.” When he laid out his centrist vision, he left the door open to those at all points along the political spectrum to advance their ideas about how to improve the vision he laid out.

How do your representatives measure up?

It’s up to all of us in the vast American middle to demand that our representatives in the House and Senate stop any partisan jockeying and work with this President on his conservative, yet sensible, plan to ensure that we all get affordable, quality health insurance.

Everyone knows we have a problem. It’s time to pull together to solve it, and thus far its the President who keeps extending his hand to his opposition. It’s time for those on the other side of the aisle to get in line. There will be plenty of time to campaign later.

This morning, I opened my email to find a news item that read “Polls show support slips for Obama’s health plan” – citing a New York Time/CBS News poll in which 69% of respondents said they “were concerned that the quality of their health care would decline if the government put universal health insurance in place.”

I wasn’t completely surprised because I’ve literally heard the tide of public concern growing. Over the weekend, we had a small party and it just so happened that (I swear – without my prompting) a handful or people started talking about the health reform proposals inching their way through Congress.

As I listened to a familiar stream of message points, I was impressed and heartened that my friends and family have obviously been paying attention to the debate. I was also really surprised at the passion of each side. There were red faces, loud voices, indignant glares. Some of them sounded like they’d been backed into a corner. They were, as the headline above said, “concerned.”

That’s understandable, because the potential for change in the health care system is HUGE. The changes needed really are drastic. The investment in those changes will also be HUGE, and that’s daunting in this economy. It’s not really a shock that people are concerned that things could get worse.

But here’s the other thing: our little party focus group participants ALL could agree that the health care system is ailing. They complained about denial of coverage and the greed of the insurance industry. And I’d suspect they could all agree that the system is ALREADY getting worse.

And that would jive with the feelings of the American public at large. While some polls have shown that Americans would be more comfortable with “the devil they know,” another recent poll shows that Americans know full well that the existing system truly is a devil – and they’re afraid they’ll get burned if and when they face a major health crisis that forces them to file a claim.

So is it OK that everyone wants to take a deep breath and tap the brakes (and that’s happening now)? Sure. But it’s also important right now to remind ourselves that Congress is taking drastic action because the nation is faced with a drastic situation.

We need to channel our concern into change by voicing our support for the provisions of the legislation that make sense to us. We can’t throw the baby out with the bath water.

We can not afford to be paralyzed by our fear.

We’re tempted to say that President Obama got Punk’d yesterday by the Senate, as Majority Leader Harry Reid announced that the Senate will not be able to get a health reform bill wrapped up before a month-long Congressional recess that starts in August.

We would love to have had Congress hammer out the bill. We took some satisfaction in knowing that legislators were going to have to put in long hours and burn the midnight oil in order to craft the legislation by the President’s deadline. (”Welcome to the world of overtime, Senator.”)

But deep down, we understand – and we agree – that this legislation has to be right. And we’re giving the President some props for backing off on his do-or-die August deadline, while still standing firm on his oft-repeated mantra that health reform must happen this year.

In his press conference Wednesday night, President Obama reassured the American public again that, as much as health reform legislation moving through Congress has faced a stiff wind of opposition, the legislation is steadily moving forward. As much as Democrats may complain about the dozens of amendments introduced by Republicans, we agree with his assertion that contributions from those amendments actually constitute progress – and will make the final bill that much better.

And while some in the opposition may say that this delay might mark President Obama’s “Waterloo,” we’re convinced that it simply reaffirms what we already believed: that unlike his detractors, this President isn’t focused on “winning at all costs,” especially if that win means the nation would end up with flawed health reform. The President’s pledge of bipartisanship is not a slogan, but something that comes from his core – and if moderates on the both sides follow his example,  America will enjoy a little more government and a little less politics.

In this case, President Obama’s patience is definitely a virtue.

It’s hard enough trying to convince Americans that it’s time for drastic health reform measures when that reform is being fought tooth and nail by the health insurance industry, which today launched a seven-figure advertising campaign to put pressure on moderate Congressional Democrats. The pressure, of course, is to urge them to help kill momentum health reform legislation that has been moving swiftly through Congressional committees and is on track for approval by the time Congress takes its August/September recess.

But then there are the opposition legislators, who are marching in lockstep, hammering away on scare-tactic phrases like “rationing” and “socialism” and “spend-and-tax Democrats.” This week, those legislators are being whipped into a feeding frenzy by the aforementioned advertising and by encouragement from guys like Bill Kristol, who says Republicans need to “go for the kill.”

We expect this opposition. But what is completely mind numbing is media reaction to the opposition. Since last week, when the Congressional Budget Office said that health spending would continue to increase under current reform proposals, the supposedly liberal media has taken on the persona of Chicken Little, screaming in headlines that the sky is falling on health reform.

This week, ABC News blared “Facing Tepid Support on Health Care, Obama Makes Renewed Push on Bill Before Congressional Recess.” “Tepid support?” Do they mean tepid as in the American Medical Association’s support of the House bill? or tepid as in the fact that the industry has come to the bargaining table, finally agreeing that it’s time to stop denying coverage due to pre-existing conditions?

The Washington Post reports “Poll Shows Obama Slipping on Key Issues,” noting that public approval of Obama’s handling of health reform has dropped below 50 percent. Wow. That low? And his approval rating overall has fallen under 60 percent? Remind us again where Americans rate the Republicans on performance. Wait. Here it is.

Can the media be that suggestible – that it’s swallowing opposition message points? Is its memory so short that it can’t recall how badly Americans wanted change back in November?

Or (and we’re dreaming here) are the media as frightened of political remission as we are and – in a shrewdly calculated and vast left-wing conspiracy – trying to help put the fire under President Obama? Are they hoping, as we are, that the big gun that gets pulled in this fight is our Top Gun, the President himself?

We’re less than certain that the media is that savvy. And if they’re not, we’d suggest they review the progress made thus far on reform, and perhaps spend a little more air time reporting (as Ezra Klein helps point out) that “the sky is just fine.”

Organizing for America, the campaign arm of the Obama machine, is targeting constituents of moderate Senators in both parties with a cable TV ad buy.

We have no quarrel with the content of the ad, shown below. The stories of the people featured ring true, and this campaign serves a noble purpose in letting their stories be heard and encouraging constituents to make their wishes known to their senators.

But an ad buy by the campaign arm of a sitting president is not business as usual. It’s a new tactic we’d prefer not to see.

Most of the current problems the United States is in, including the financial crisis, can be tracked back to Supreme Court decisions that have granted corporations the same rights as individuals. But those corporations’  nearly unlimited budgets to buy the results they want have seriously knocked our country’s scales of justice out of balance. Instead of giving corporations an equal voice with individuals – a concept that is nothing short of bizarre to start with – it actually has the effect of neutering individual opinion.

The health care industry – private insurers, pharmaceutical corporations, hospitals, doctors, nurses and thousands of lobbyists – is currently spending around $1.4 million a day lobbying the 535 members of Congress to defeat a public option. More yet in advertising falsely warning of the dangers of “socialized” medicine. That is an insane amount of money, and a corrupting one. (Read the Transcript of Capital Eye Blog’s Web Chat on Money and Lobbying in Heath Care Reform.)

The much smaller ad buy by Organizing for America is a David vs. Goliath effort. Beyond health care, we need to work to lessen the influence of corporations in our legislative processes.

Read “The Health Care Crisis: Letters from Vermont and America” telling stories of real people at Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) site.

Since the health insurance industry stonewalled the Clinton Administration’s attempts to drastically overhaul our trainwreck of a health care system, Americans have been waiting.

We’ve been waiting for something nearly miraculous: a convergence of conditions that would include a frightening global economic climate; a national realization that our system is an ineffective, unfair mess; and the election of a Congress and President with enough votes to change that system.

Guess what. That miracle is here.

But recent news points to a completely baffling reality: that some members of the Democratic party – which effectively won the equivalent of Willy Wonka’s Golden Ticket in the 2008 elections – are now willing to watch that ticket flutter away in the wind. But why?

When the Democrats were swept into a majority in the House and Senate and Barack Obama took the Presidency, what did those elected officials think? That their constituents voted them in because we wanted Democrats to sit back and let Congress do business as usual?

When voters handed Democrats the rare and awesome ability to override the Congressional stall tactics that have hamstrung health care reform in the past, did those legislators believe voters were urging them to accept industry-driven counterproposals as though they had no choice?

Why, when 76 percent of the American public says they would at least consider the Democrat’s proposed public plan, would any Democrat begin backing away from that plan? After all, when we voted them into office, we gave Democrats the votes to do what they have always said they would do: to make life better for every American. And a public plan could do that.

So why would Democrats rip up their Golden Ticket? We strong suspect it’s about industry money, and these numbers support that notion.

We understand why the industry opposes a public plan; it threatens the pocketbooks of private insurance. But we don’t understand why any Democrat pulled into Washington with the Obama tide would allow industry contributions to affect their ability to really make historic change.

In a recent speech to the American Medical Association, President Obama assured the medical community that he trusted that they became doctors because they wanted to heal – and not because they were driven by a desire to become rich. It’s sad to think that the President would be forced to deliver the same speech to members of his own party.

Democrats: This is your moment. It is a moment for greatness, a David-and-Goliath moment – a moment to affect every single American living and generations of Americans to come.

Democrats: Americans are watching you. We have given you a Golden Ticket and our expectations are high. And you can trust that you will hear our voices this summer as we call your offices, sign petitions, and write letters to our newspapers.

Do not let us down.