I have volunteered for President Obama's campaign and have made over 2,000 phone calls over a 2 month period. I, like many progressives, doctors, nurses, etc., strongly believe a single payer system to be the easiest, most effective way to deal with the health care crisis.

With the understanding that we live in a world of compromise, progressive have settle on the compromised position of a public option in order to accommodate the interests of the much too powerful insurance industry and its representatives in Congress, the Republican party.

The elimination of the public option would be an unacceptable capitulation to the will of the minority (70% of Americans have consistently supported single payer over many years) and for this reason, it will not be something that I, and many other progressives would support.

The President, and the Democratic party should better pay attention to the following: any health care bill that shall pass without a strong public option will simply be seen by progressives like myself as a mandate to deliver more customers to private health insurance companies; and if that is what comes to pass you will have lost my support for the foreseeable future.

If the Democratic party capitulates to the pressures of big business and deny the people the choice of a strong public option, it will be the final nail in the coffin of the party as the representative of working people. I, for one, will actively begin working to build a truly progressive party to the left of the apparently centrist, corporate driven Democratic party.