Which version of the public option is Obama fighting for?

[rudy23]

Ive seen too many weasel words, most notably by Robert Gibbs to Helen Thomas, to be comfortable with these new stories I'm hearing.

I hope it's the full public option, but when I hear "some version of the public option" or "A public option" I feel like I'm about to be lied to again. Anyone else feel that way?

[Hepburn]

1. Yes....

....a public option that is not available to everyone is NOT by defintion a "public" option. So far, I am not comfortable.

JMHO

[WatchWhatISay]

7. Not true

It is public in the sense ,that a public entity, not a private corporation will administer the plan.

But not letting anyone who wants to join the plan will not bring down costs or give people relief from greedy insurance corporations. It will just make the insurance business more profitable since the government will just be taking the poor and the sickest people out of the risk pool for the insurance companies.

[saracat]

2. I want to know the answer to this too! And I also am suspicious of the verbiage

and that this is done "quietly" and Kent Conrad and the conservatives Dems have to be pleased.

[Bluenorthwest]

3. It is probably the one with a redefined meaning for the word

option. They want 'option' to mean a thing you can not freely select, but a thing that you can have if there are no other choices. The word as they use it is without meaning.

[yurbud]

4. I feel about 80% that way. The weaker it is, the less likely it will compete with and

ultimately supplant private insurance.

[frebrd]

5. Whichever is most politically expedient.

:(

[Kermitt Gribble]

6. Yes.

The easiest, obvious, and most beneficial (to the public) direction for a real public option would be to remove the age restriction on Medicare and let anyone enroll in that program if they so choose. Since that isn't even being discussed, I'm leary of any 'version' of a public option they may be working on.