Over the last few days it has become quite clear that the initiative in health care reform is passing to us. Progressive activists have become organized and energized to ensure that the public option, itself the minimally acceptable compromise, remains a part of the health care bill. Thanks to the work of Caliticians like David and Dante Atkins, Bob Brigham, and the rest of the progressive netroots, we are now having a great deal of success at drawing a firm and hard line.

Of course, we also must remember the reasons why a public option matters. A strong public health insurance option that any American can choose to join is one of the only ways to ensure that the private insurance companies remain honest.

Particularly because the private insurers have been operating their own “death panels” for some time now. As we saw in the high-profile cases of Nataline Sarkisyan and Nick Colombo health insurance companies routinely deny coverage and care to insured patients once they get a terminal illness.

One such patient was Patsy Bates. The Courage Campaign decided to dramatize her story last year in an ad we call Insurance Jive – the impenetrable language of insurance companies that obscures their deadly effect.

Today the Courage Campaign relaunched that video in order to provide a strong visual message about the need to act for the public option. Wendell Potter, a former Cigna executive who has been making the rounds explaining his insiders’ view about why we need major health care reform in America, wrote an email to our members calling on them to watch the video and to call their members of Congress to shore up support for the public option.

The video and click-to-call action is Courage Campaign’s contribution to the broad progressive netroots mobilization on behalf of real health care reform. Make no mistake, the public option is at best a compromise position, and only a halfway step toward full single-payer care. But it is important that we win this fight and show the insurance companies for what they really are – a danger to our very survival.

Below the flip is the email Wendell Potter sent to our members today.

My good friend Wendell Potter, a former head of corporate communications for CIGNA — one of California’s largest health insurance companies — asked us to share this message with the Courage Campaign community. After many years of defending the health insurance industry, Wendell is now an outspoken supporter for health care reform.

Rick Jacobs

Chair, Courage Campaign

Dear Robert —

For 20 years, I defended what some might call “death panels,” operated by the health insurance industry, which denied health care coverage to people who needed it.

As head of corporate communications for one of the nation’s largest health insurance companies, I had to find new and creative ways to defend an industry with a profit incentive to deny, drop or delay health care coverage. I was very good at creating language — what my friends at the Courage Campaign call “insurance jive” — that justified the harm we were causing to families across the nation.

I spoke “insurance jive” as well as I could. Then, one day in 2007, I saw hundreds of Americans waiting in the rain for hours in Virginia to get free medical care they otherwise could not afford. My conscience told me I had to stop. So I quit my job and began to speak out for real health care reform.

My experience in the insurance industry taught me that the only way we will stop the insurance companies from denying coverage to sick and dying Americans is to keep them honest with a strong public health insurance option. If more Americans have the option to receive health insurance from the government — like Medicare — competitive pressure on the private insurers will force them to clean up their act.

That’s why I’m proud to introduce the Courage Campaign’s powerful “Insurance Jive” video, which dramatizes the true story of a California patient who had her insurance policy canceled after she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

“Insurance Jive” shows that insurance companies actually operate de facto “death panels” — and demonstrates why we must demand that a strong public option be included in health care reform.

Click here to watch this powerful 40-second online video. Then forward this message to your friends and ask them to watch “Insurance Jive” as well. The more people see it, the more we can spread the progressive message that health care reform is desperately needed:

http://www.couragecampaign.org…

The health insurance industry is spending millions of dollars lobbying Congress to kill the public option. They know that a strong public option will force insurers to cut costs and ensure that patients get the health care they need. Only competition from public insurance can keep the private insurers honest.

The Obama Administration has been sending mixed signals on the public option in recent days. But progressive organizations and blogs including ProgressiveCongress.org, Democracy for America, CREDO Mobile, MoveOn.org and Firedoglake — and netroots activists including Californians David and Dante Atkins and Howie Klein — are leading the fight to save the public option.

This growing movement is keeping the public option alive. By making sure our representatives oppose any bill without a strong public option, we can increase pressure on the White House to continue to fight for the public option as well.

It takes just a minute to watch “Insurance Jive” and forward it to your friends. It takes just one more minute to use the Courage Campaign’s easy “click-to-call” tool to tell your Congressmember to support the public option. Click here to watch the video and make a call now:

http://www.couragecampaign.org…

Thank you for helping us put an end to insurance jive.

Wendell Potter