Patricia WilliamsFormer Governor and medical doctor Howard Dean open the discussion by bringing up the issue of framing the discussion. "The fundamental way to frame the topic is to give Americans a choice," he said. He believes that Americans would reform health care by their choices and the public option gives them a real choice.

"Congress is taking choices away," he said, and they "are shoveling tax payers' money to the health insurance industry at a rate that will made the AIG bailout look like a bake sale."

Dean's comments grew more passionate and direct as he when on. He believes that progressives should not support a bill that does not have a public option. "The health insurance industry is the most corrupt business in America," he said and he also thinks the our current health care system is the least effective.

He went on to say that "not one dime of funding should go to those Democrats who oppose the public option." To strong applause he singled out the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) that should get no money at all from progressives.

Howard DeanBetsy Reed took a different tact to the topic going back over what went right about the health care reform debate and pointed out "the fact that the public option survived says something about our ability to shape this legislation."

"The Far Right has hijacked the discussion around health care reform thanks to Sarah Palin and her Facebook message of August 7, 2009: http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=113851103434

And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's "death panel" so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their "level of productivity in society," whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.

While it took momentum away from real discussion on health care reform,"Health Care for America Now has been able to keep the public option on the table," said Reed.

Reed acknowledged that health insurance money speaks louder than what we are able to do, but we have to keep our eye on the ball and hold members of congress accountable for their actions.
Betsy Reed

"The public option was the compromise," were the opening words from vanden Heuvel, "because single payer was off the table" who when on to outline why progressives cannot disengage from the debate, no matter how much we dislike the bill or how much it disgusts us.

Raising the issue of the filibuster in the Senate by asking why four Senators were holding health care reform hostage she said, "The Senate is the most anti-democratic body in a nation that calls itself democratic."

She cautioned against engaging in the "betrayal sweepstakes" saying that "if we disengage, we cannot influence the debate."

Using an "inside - outside synergy" she called on progressives to organize and be the counter force to the Blue Dog Democrats. She said, "Obama needs to be pushed on so many issues," and we are the people who can do the pushing.

When we think that the insurance industry has given $2.5 million to the four Senators who are opposed to health care reform, her call to "organize money against the organized" reinforced Dean's call to target those who oppose to this reform effort.

Greider opened his comments by saying that progressives have been in the wilderness for the past 25 years. "We are watching the Democrats play out a center vs. left rift and we are afraid to call out the Democrats on this," he said.

When it comes to health care, he is confident that once the Senate passed a bill and it goes to the conference committee, the final result will be closer to what progressive want. However, he feels that we need a mechanism that says more than "we hope you do what we want."

Echoing Dean and Reed, Greider told the audience the "we need to say what the consequences are if the Senate bill moves forward. We cannot fold and compromise in the final hour."

Referring to the tactics of the Right, he said progressives need to "name names" and take down those members of congress who are obstructionists to real progressive change for the nation. It needs to be methodical and we need to keep doing it until the party changes.

Greider too said the next Congress "needs to bust the filibuster rule in the Senate." This is a point the progressives cannot compromise on. "Reid has to decide if committee chairs are Democrats for real or are freelances," he said.

"We need a democratic wing within the Democratic party," said Greider, "and we have a leader in our mists," referring to Howard Dean. "Part of the weakness of the Democrats is our fractioned state," but if progressives are going to be successful in pushing the party to leave behind the policies that have benefited the wealthy elite at the expense of the middle class this wing of the party "has to have a leader and authorization."

"Reflect on what has happened to the Republican Party and how the Right succeeded there," he said ending his comments.

Williams then asked the participants to respond to what the other panelists had said before she opened it up to questions from the audience.

"If elected, I shall not to serve" said Dean referring to Greider's nomination he become the leader of the democratic wing of the party which drew laughter and applause from the participants.

"We need to take out obstructionist," he reiterated, "they do not have a moral right to prevent bills from coming forward." Senator Joe Liebermann drew particular ire from Dean.

As for the filibuster, Dean reminded the participants that we have used it to our advantage in the past and we need to tread lightly on something that has helped us.

Dean worried that the party was "about to make the same mistake we did 30 years ago and leave our base." Doing so could make Republican majorities in both chambers of Congress "a real possibility for 2010." Democratic Senators and Representatives have to "speak with their constituents," and follow their desires.

As for the relationships between Obama and the progressive movement, Reed said: "We need to support Obama against the right wing, but we cannot allow that to silence ourselves" and our opposition to legislation we feel is morally wrong, i.e. a health care bill with no public option.

Once again referring to the recent past, Greider said what we are seeing play out in the health care debate is the same as with the financial reform. The Democrats have learned over the past 25 years is to avoid deep change structural change needed correct many problems in our society but instead to just address superficial elements that do not require real dialogue about the root causes and where we want to go as a society. As a result government and the private sector have become too closely meshed together which has lead often to corruption and the detriment of the American people.

"We have to ask what is it that government can do and only government can do?," he said. "Mixing private with government interests is bad for the country and progressives need to take up this challenge" of defining what it is that government can do for the sake of our shared common futures.

Much to the disappointment of some members of the audience, time for the session had ran out.

Next the participants have a day off from seminars as the ship docks in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, for a day. On Thursday we take up "What to do about the economy?" and look at the crisis in journalism.