Health care reform riles up big-city DFLers

You want to see some vein-popping, eyeball-bulging, fire-breathing, pissed-off progressive rhetoric on health care? Sample these speeches from Saturday’s DFL rally for health care reform in St. Paul, featuring U.S. Reps. Betty McCollum and Keith Ellison, and mayors R.T. Rybak of Minneapolis and Chris Coleman of St. Paul, in video clips via The UpTake.

McCollum, fending off hecklers and making reference to protesters who chanted “Kill the bill!” in her St. Paul office earlier this month (Minnesota Independent video):

I support a public option for insurance. … I want to put an end to insurance companies’ rationing your health care. As I said, our nation’s health care is on life support. And there are many Republicans who just want to kill the bill.

Ellison:

Every debate has a rhythm to it. … Did you think these people who are making gazillions of dollars out of denying you and me care are going to give up without a fight? … Many of us said we wanted single payer. We’ve done all the compromising we’re going to do. … The line has been drawn in the sand and we will not abide a bill without a public option.

Rybak:

If someone goes to the emergency room with a chronic disease that could have been tested earlier … it’s unbelievably expensive for us to do nothing. And it is unbelievably expensive in our wallets and it is unbelievably expensive in the moral fabric of what we are as a people. … We’re not going to agree on all the details. I happen to be passionate about having a public option.

Coleman:

We have challenges upon challenges upon challenges. But the issue of resolving the health care crisis isn’t one issue; it is the issue facing this country. … This is the headpin in the bowling alley.