Who will stand with Congressmen Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) and Eric Massa (D-New York)?

Who will stand with them for single payer and against President Obama’s bailout of the health insurance industry – also known as Obama’s health care reform bill (HR 3962)?

Kucinich and Massa were the only single payer supporters in the House who voted against the bill.

Kucinich called the bill “a bailout under a Blue Cross.”

Massa said the bill would “enshrine in law the monopolistic powers of the private health insurance industry.”

Of the 88 members of the House who say they are for a single payer national health care system, which ones will stand with Kucinich and Massa for single payer and against Obamacare in the upcoming health care end game?

Only a handful will need to come over to defeat Obama’s bailout of the health insurance corporations.

And trigger a national debate on how to replace those hundreds of health insurance corporations with one single payer.

Everybody in one insurance pool.

Nobody out.

On the question of who will stand with Kucinich and Massa, two surprises emerged this week.

Congresswoman Donna Edwards (D-Maryland) – one of the most liberal members of the House and a long time single payer supporter – disappointed single payer activists nationwide when she sided with the House leadership – Steny Hoyer and Nancy Pelosi – and against Kucinich and Massa.

But Health Care Now – the labor heavy single payer coalition – moved the other way.

At the end of its weekend strategy conference in St. Louis, the group voted overwhelmingly to stand with Kucinich and Massa and oppose Obama’s health care reform proposal in Congress.

Edwards is a surprise because, coming into the health care debate, she was considered perhaps the most liberal member – and one of the strongest single payer supporters in the House.

Health Care Now is a surprise because it’s the first of the liberal health care coalitions to openly oppose Obama’s health care legislation.

Labor groups have criticized the bill – but not openly opposed it.

Similarly, women’s groups have opposed the anti-abortion provisions of the House bill – but not openly opposed the underlying bill.

Edwards surprisingly fell in line with Obama and the House leadership without much of a fight.

Edwards started out the year a strong single payer supporter.

She quickly backpedaled – but drew a line in the sand this summer saying she would support nothing less than a public option tied to Medicare rates.

On July 30, 2009, Edwards signed a letter with 53 other members of the House Progressive Caucus saying that anything less than a public option tied to Medicare rates would be “unacceptable.”

But Edwards then quickly fell back from that position when she voted for a public option that will only cover six million Americans and is not tied to Medicare rates.

Edwards says that she was able to support the House bill minus a strong public option because the head of the so-called insurance exchange created under the bill and state insurance commissioners would be able to exclude from the exchange companies that had raised premiums and other costs excessively.

This morning, Edwards crossed over into heavily corporate Democratic territory when she hosted a fundraiser for her campaign at Johnny’s Half Shell restaurant on Capitol Hill.

Special guest?

Corporate Democratic kingmaker and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Maryland).

On the way into the restaurant this morning, we asked Edwards why she didn’t join Kucinich and Massa in opposition to the Obama bill.

“The bill we’ve gotten is really substantial,” Edwards said. “It takes us in the right direction.”

Don’t tell that to the more than 100 single payer activists who attended this weekend’s Health Care Now annual strategy conference in St. Louis.

They voted overwhelmingly to have their group oppose the legislation Edwards and the majority of the House Progressive Caucus voted for.

Health Care Now is a coalition of single payer activists.

Michael Lighty, of the California Nurses Association and a Health Care Now board member, told the gathering that while his union and other member unions were not in a position to come out in opposition to the Obama health care legislation – there was nothing stopping Health Care Now from doing it.

When asked why the unions did come out in opposition to the bill, Lighty said that each union – including the nurses – got something out of the legislation.

Another union leader told the gathering that the real reason was that the unions didn’t want to offend their friend in the White House.