Obama quietly tries to shore up Senate support for public option

[kpete]

Source: Los Angeles Times

Obama quietly tries to shore up Senate support for public option

The president has backed off from vocally supporting the idea of government-run healthcare, but he's working to build a coalition of supporters. The challenge: Find a version that can pass.

Reporting from Washington - Despite months of outward ambivalence about creating a government health insurance plan, the Obama White House has launched a behind-the-scenes campaign to get divided Senate Democrats to take up some version of the idea for a final vote in the coming weeks.

President Obama has cited a preference for the so-called public option. But faced with intense criticism over the summer, he strategically expressed openness to health cooperatives and other ways to offer consumers potentially more affordable alternatives to private health plans.

In the last week, however, senior administration officials have been holding private meetings almost daily at the Capitol with senior Democratic staff to discuss ways to include a version of the public plan in the healthcare bill that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) plans to bring to the Senate floor this month, according to senior Democratic congressional aides.



Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-healthcare-obama5-2009oct05,0,6927400,full.story

[mvd]

1. K&R

:kick:

[Eric J in MN]

2. They should pass the public option with 51 votes in reconciliation...

...instead of coming up with a way to make the public option so weak that even Olympia Snowe would vote for it.

[Captain Hilts]

5. BINGO. nt

[Rozlee]

15. Bush and the Retardicans did budget reconciliation with their tax cuts

and I hate to praise those bastards for anything, but at least they had nards, something Obama and our spineless (except for Grayson and Howard Dean) Democratic Congress are lacking. This trying to win hearts and minds is easier with the Iranians than with the Rethugs. If Obama doesn't realize that, we're all sunk. He said that several Presidents in the pass had tried to pass relevant health care reform and he was determined to be the last. He ain't kidding. If he fails with this, and the Supremes pass that Corporate personhood bullshit, we may have Republican rule as far ahead as the eye can see.

[Captain Hilts]

16. Yep. Time to play tackle football. Enough of this two-hand touch shit. nt

[Robyn66]

18. You have to give the Rethugs one thing

they know how to get shit done! We need to learn how to do that. A lot less playing nice in the sandbox and a lot more whatever it takes to get it done!

[Kingofalldems]

3. And yes!

K and R

[orpupilofnature57]

4. Smart to take the WWF out of it.

[joeycola]

6. Settling for crumbs is weak.

[SPedigrees]

7. A public option is not a crumb. It can be strengthened once it is implemented, as was done with med

medicare.

[joeycola]

14. Obama started from a weak bargaining position and now is weaking

what is left of the so-called "reform"

[SPedigrees]

17. I suppose you'd have been against the first version of medicare too.

It was a weak program, but once it was enacted improvements were made. If medicare's authors had insisted on perfection, we wouldn't have this substantial safety net now.

[joeycola]

19. Different issue and different time.

[SPedigrees]

20. It was exactly the same issue. Creating not-for-profit health insur for Americans.

[joeycola]

21. It was for the older age group which people (at that time) generally

had lots of respect for.

[SPedigrees]

25. And the public option is for a select group of Americans also. Your point?

[dmosh42]

8. Without a public option, vote it down!

Otherwise it would be a tremendous windfall for the insurance crooks who have engineered this fiasco.

[orpupilofnature57]

9. Agreed , it's the deciding factor in proving ,People or Corporations!

[mvd]

10. I don't think he wants to veto, but I personally would

And let s couple of the most supported elements (like the pre-existing conditions denial ban) go into effect first. Maybe Obama would see a bill without a public option as breaking his rule that the bill must hold down costs.

[grantcart]

22. without the public option it simply doesn't meet his standards

I don't think that he thinks of a veto because his mind frame is one of being persistent and using the logic of the argument to wear down the other side.

[mvd]

23. I agree that it doesn't

That might be why he'll veto even though now he's not threatening one. His speech to Congress was very third-way, but he could be playing both sides to get what he wants.

[grantcart]

24. I have an alternative theory

There already has been agreement that some Senators need to vote against the bill but they have agreed not to support the filibuster. It passes 57-43.

[saracat]

11. Why does the PO have to be a "version" everyone can accept?

Why does Obam's support have to be "quiet"? It seems he is "afraid" of the blue dogs and the GOP.

[No Elephants]

12. Are writers Levey and Hook liars or idiots, or both?...

"The president has backed off from vocally supporting the idea of government-run healthcare.."

Government run healthcare? Wtf? Government run health care means the government owning hospitals, hiring and firing doctors, nurses, maintenance crew, etc. When the hell was the President "vocally supporting" that? He never even supported single payer. The public option, whereby government would, for a small percentage of the population, accept premiums and pay bills, is one hell of a long way from "government run health care."

Public option is not "a national government plan" either. It's simply an option for those who cannot afford health insurance from a private insurer. Last I heard, it was about 5% of adults.

Oh, and the title of the President of a nation is capitalized, although the president of a company is not.

And not only did two writers blow it, but no editor picked up such glaring errors? Or were the writers deliberately distorting?

What in heaven's name happened to the L.A. Times?

[mvd]

13. And that affordability rate can be called into question

For example, while at the moment I can afford my plan, it leaves me very little spending room. Hope we get a PO that is available to all.