The first video below is mine. I threw it together to give you a feel for our trip.

The next is shorter and was produced by SEIU. It includes remarks by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Senate HELP Committee Chairman Tom Harkin, Sen. Chris Dodd and others. I recommend it as a companion video to mine because it fills in many gaps and provides a more national perspective.

Finally, I must tell you that Health Care in Black and White: Part 2 may be delayed a day because putting the Melanie's March video together took me all day. I wanted to get it up quickly. Pay attention to the man with the bullhorn midway through.

Thanks to all who made this trip possible. It was grueling for all of us. Eleven of us drove straight through to Maryland on Wednesday. Others from St. Louis traveled separately. On Thursday we went to the rally, visited with Sen. Claire McCaskill's legislative staff to demand she support the public option, and then drove straight back, arriving home Friday morning.

Honestly, I do not think health care reform will pass with a public option. There is a deafening silence from our Democratic leaders, most of whom carefully avoid mentioning it.

In an impromptu straw poll taken among our group of 11 in the conference room of Sen. McCaskill, we voted unanimously to include a public option in the final legislation. I repeatedly told the senator's aides that she risked a Massachusetts outcome in her 2012 re-election bid if she did not fire up her base by exhibiting leadership and signing the Bennet letter supporting restoration of the public option. For nearly an hour, we hammered home that demand and were met only with the flimsy excuse that Claire McCaskill does not like to sign on to every letter that crosses her desk. That she refuses to take a public stand is more of the handwriting on the wall: The public option is not part of the discussion in those smoke-filled rooms.

At least we tried. And tried. And tried. Just as Melanie would have wanted us to. Just as you wanted us to.

The reforms that will pass--and they will--go a long way to fixing the problems that led to Melanie's death and the deaths of many others. Right now there is more to do, more pressure to be applied. Don't let up. Don't stop demanding a public option. Even after President Obama signs this reform into law, the next battle lies before us. The battle for the public option has just begun.