No, we don’t, and Democrats in Congress are the reason we don’t. In the House of Representatives, the Blue Dog Democrats wrecked health care reform. In the Senate, five right wing Democrats joined the Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee today to vote against a public option in health care reform. These five Democratic turncoats were:

Max Baucus
Blanche Lincoln
Kent Conrad
Bill Nelson
Tom Carper

Progressive organizations agree – without a public option health care reform is rendered virtually meaningless. Now, these right wing Democratic senators have killed the public option. They’ve ripped the heart out of Barack Obama’s reform program.

So what are we going to do about it? Sit around and mope? No. We’re going to teach these anti-progressive Democrats a lesson about what happens when leaders break promises made to progressives. The progressives get organized, and they fight back.

In Arkansas, John Gray is leading the charge. He is challenging Blanche Lincoln from the left, asking why Lincoln is abandoning Democratic Party promises and voting like a Republican instead.

Today, Gray responded right away when he heard that Blanche Lincoln had voted against Barack Obama’s public option. Gray linked Lincoln’s anti-reform vote to the large campaign donations she receives from insurance companies and other commercial entities that make a profit from the broken status quo. “She has a rather large campaign chest, almost half of which is from the medical industries,” Gray said. “The fact that she is loyal to her sponsors is not at all surprising.”

Gray pledged to support single payer health care instead of the pro-industry sham promoted by Senator Lincoln. By eliminating the commercial inefficiencies created by insurance companies, the Gray Health Plan would enable savings that would pay for health care coverage for all Americans.

Universal health care coverage – remember that promise? John Gray has not forgotten. That’s a darned good reason to vote John Gray for Senate in 2010.

Joe Wilson, in response to Obama’s declaration that health care reform would not deliver government-funded medicine to illegal aliens, shouted, “You lie!”

The implication was that Barack Obama is involved in some sort of conspiracy to encourage illegal immigrants by providing them with free medical care. That’s just not true. As President Obama repeatedly explained, a public option would be for citizens. Tax credits would be for citizens. You can’t claim a tax credit if you’re here illegally.

So no, Joe Wilson, you lie.

As long as we’re surrendering to scare tactics in the health care reform debate, I say that we go whole hog, and go running down the street screaming, with our hands waving in the air.

That’s why I love this sarcastic bumper sticker, which captures the current tone of health care reform rhetoric in the terrified phrase: Health Care Reform Ate My Baby!