W.H. backs away from public option - Page 2 - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

LUVMBDiesels · #1 08-16-2009, 08:52 PM

W.H. backs away from public option

Carrie Budoff Brown Carrie Budoff Brown Sun Aug 16, 3:02 pm ET
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President Barack Obama and his top aides are signaling that they’re prepared to drop a government insurance option from a final health-reform deal if that’s what’s needed to strike a compromise on Obama’s top legislative priority.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Sunday that the public option was “not the essential element” of the overhaul. A day earlier, Obama downplayed the public option during a Colorado town hall meeting, saying it was “just one sliver” of the debate.
He even chided Democratic supporters and Republican critics for becoming “so fixated on this that they forget everything else” — a dig at some liberals in his own party who have made the public option the main rallying cry of the health reform debate.
At the same time, Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), one of six senators involved in bipartisan Finance Committee negotiations, all but declared the public option dead in the Senate.
“Look, the fact of the matter is there are not the votes in the United States Senate for the public option,” said Conrad, who has pushed an alternative proposal to create a network of consumer cooperatives, on Fox News Sunday. “There never have been. So to continue to chase that rabbit, I think, is just a wasted effort.”
A White House aide said in an e-mailed statement Sunday afternoon that the president is not backing away from the public plan.
"Nothing has changed,” said Linda Douglass, communications director for the White House Office of Health Reform. “The president has always said that what is essential is that health insurance reform must lower costs, ensure that there are affordable options for all Americans and it must increase choice and competition in the health insurance market. He believes the public option is the best way to achieve those goals."
But taken together, the remarks from Obama, Sebelius and Conrad suggest the White House is preparing supporters for a health care compromise that may well exclude the government option — which could help Obama win enough votes for a sweeping overhaul but touch off a nasty battle inside his own party between liberals and more moderate members who have resisted a bigger government role in health care.
It was only in June that Obama said in a letter to Senate Democrats that “I strongly believe that Americans should have the choice of a public health insurance option operating alongside private plans. This will give them a better range of choices, make the health care market more competitive, and keep insurance companies honest.”
A month ago, Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address that “any plan I sign must include an insurance exchange: a one-stop shopping marketplace where you can compare the benefits, cost and track records of a variety of plans – including a public option to increase competition and keep insurance companies honest – and choose what’s best for your family.”
But in the face of hardening opposition to the idea — even inside his own party — Obama appears ready to retrench. Obama and his aides continue to emphasize having some competitor to private insurers, perhaps nonprofit insurance cooperatives, but they are using stronger language to downplay the importance that it be a government plan.
“What's important is choice and competition,” Sebelius said on CNN’s State of the Union. “And I'm convinced at the end of the day, the plan will have both of those. But that is not the essential element."
The reaction in the liberal blogosphere and beyond was swift and negative Sunday.
“Ultimately, if the president decides he’s going to go with a reform effort that doesn’t include a public option, what he will have done is spent a ton of political capital, riled up an incredibly angry right-wing base that’s been told this is a plot to kill Grandma, and he will have achieved something that doesn’t change health care very much and that doesn’t save us very much money and won’t do much for the American people,” MSNBC host Rachel Maddow said on NBC’s "Meet the Press." "It’s not a very good thing to spend a lot of political capital on."
One diarist on the Daily Kos said the “public option is in the ICU. ... When you call something that once was the central tenet of reform is now a ‘sliver,’ it is very difficult to argue it is not being de-emphasized.” Another diarist wrote this headline: “Told you so: Public Option, Meet Underside of Bus.”