... if one other Senator can be persuaded. At the MyDD link, Katie Robbins writes:

Here is what you can do: Single-Payer New York met with Senator Schumer, member of the Senate Finance Committee, on Friday evening. He agreed to ask Chairman Baucus to include a single-payer expert if we can get another Senator on the committee to join him. If you are a constituent of the following Senators, you can call and ask them to join Senator Schumer [NY] of the Senate Finance Committee to ask Senator Baucus to include a single-payer expert in Tuesday's Hearing:

Stabenow [MI] - Washington DC office 202-224-4822
Kerry [MA] - Washington DC office (202) 224-2742
Rockefeller [WV] - Washington DC office (202) 224-6472
For a full list of Senate Finance Committee members, go here: http://finance.senate.gov/sitepages/comm ittee.htm

If you are not a constituent of Senators on the Finance Committee, please call Sen. Baucus' office in Washington and urge him to extend the invitations at 202-224-2651, or fax him at (202) 224-9412.

Now, I know we have readers in MY and MA, and maybe in WV too. So let's all do our part and make the calls. I'll call Baucus, again.

The word, according to an email I got from Health Justice (1payer.net), is that Schumer will ask Baucus to have a single-payer advocate at the table, if we can convince another Senator to join him in asking for this.

Schumer's been disappointing on the issue of public plans in general, so I'm willing to give him a push every time he moves in vaguely the right direction. But don't mistake this news for evidence that he's decided to support single-payer (or even a true public plan option): we're not there yet.

They could serve up the Alan Colmes of single-payer and then claim, "see, we're fair and balanced!"

for hearing and adding people at last minute is just not how things are done in DC. I thanked her for her frankness.

I did ask if Schumer were just bamboozling us--she replied she would not say that, but Schumer surely knows how committee hearings work....

I really did appreciate that she was direct and didn't do the "I'll pass on your message" thing I got from Stabenow's office.

I mentioned that surely Sen. Stabenow understood that with UHC and single payer, the automakers would be in much better financial shape and more competitive. And perhaps fewer jobs would be lost.

I didn't go into GM saying it would make more autos out of the country....