Missourians, it's time to call, fax and email your only Democratic senator and demand that she publicly declare her support for the public option.

Last Wednesday, Feb. 24th, Melanie's March came to a close in Washington, D.C., with six senators in attendance pledging to pass health care reform. Afterwards, a group of 11 people from the St. Louis area, including myself, met with several key staff of Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) in her office. Our purpose was to secure Sen. McCaskill's public support for inclusion of the public option in budget reconciliation associated with health care reform.

Originally, Sen. McCaskill herself was to meet with us as well. But only after the meeting got underway were we informed that she could not attend due to a secret committee hearing about defense matters.

Time after time, our group stressed the importance of the public option in offering the American public choice they can believe in, bending the skyrocketing curve of health care costs downward, and providing competition to a private market that will otherwise always find new ways to gouge its customers and leave them helpless when they need help most.

Legislative director Stephen Hedger and aides Dr. Mark Fleury and Jacquie Stewart told us that Sen. McCaskill has already said she supports the public option and feels no need to reaffirm her stance by signing onto the Bennet letter. We made clear that Sen. McCaskill's support for the public option has been tepid, at best, and that she needs to lead on issues of primary importance to her constituents, not follow. We forcefully argued that playing both sides against the middle was not a strategy for winning her re-election, but for a Missouri version of the Massachusetts referendum on politics as usual.

At one point, Jacquie Stewart told one of our group that as passionately as our group feels, for every one of us there are 30 Tea Partiers. She is profoundly mistaken, and we intend to abide by the Missouri motto and meet her unspoken challenge to "Show Me."

As of now, 30 U.S. senators have publicly declared their support for the public option in budget reconciliation. Sen. McCaskill should join the majority of her party and do so also.

In the coming weeks, we will join with other groups  in a campaign to drive home the message to Sen. McCaskill to get off the fence. You can help. Call, fax or write Sen. McCaskill now and tell her you're no teabagger. You support the public option and expect her to publicly reiterate that if a public option is offered in the budget reconciliation for health care reform, she will vote "Yes."

Contact. Sen. McCaskill now:

DC Address:	The Honorable Claire McCaskill United States Senate 717 Hart Senate Office Building Washington, D.C. 20510-2504
DC Phone:	202-224-6154
DC Fax:	202-228-6326
Email Address:	http://mccaskill.senate.gov/?p=contact
WWW Homepage:	http://mccaskill.senate.gov/
Twitter:	@clairecmc