Liberals Warn Obama Not to Drop Public Option

Aug. 17, 2009 -- The president's liberal allies on health care reform have a message for the president: Don't think you can drop the public option without a fight.

"If the president thinks we're gonna get the votes without the public option, he's got another thing coming. That won't pass the House," said Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y.

Over the weekend, the President changed his tone on whether a final health care reform bill had to include a public option -- something that just two months ago, he indicated was a deal-breaker.

"Any plan I sign must include an insurance exchange…including a public option to increase competition and keep insurance companies honest," Obama said on June 23.

Weiner said while the White House may be able to pick up one or two senators by forgoing the public option, it will lose 100 Democratic votes in the House

"I think that we have a majority of the votes in the house and Senate for a public plan. It won't be easy but I think they're there. But they're certainly not gonna be there if every time we turn around there's another White House official walking away from it," Weiner said.

Weiner indicated that some in the president's own party feel betrayed after supporting him on health care reform and then taking lumps from constituents.

"Some of us who have gotten roughed up pretty good at town hall meetings and stuck in there because we believe in this, now kind of feel like we have a tire track on our chest where the bus that rolled over us is," Weiner said.

A government-run public health insurance option has long been a centerpiece of President Obama's plans for health care reform.

But over the weekend, Obama changed his tone and signaled that he is backing away from such a plan.

"The public option, whether we have it or we don't have it, is not the entirety of health care reform. This is just one sliver of it," he said in Grand Junction, Colo.

This comment has the president's liberal allies questioning if he can achieve cost savings from private insurance companies without a public option as competition and sparked a firestorm of criticism from liberal Democrats.

White House officials say their position on the public option is just pragmatism -- and understanding that it is a lightning rod for critics.

Administration officials dispute the notion that Obama has backed off anything, noting that the president has always believed the public option is the best way to lower costs, but is not drawing any lines in the sand.

"His preference is a public option. If there are other ideas, he's happy to look at them," Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters this evening.

Gibbs said that there has been "a boring consistency" in the administration's rhetoric on this issue.

One compromise being worked out in the Senate is for the creation of non-profit insurance co-ops that individuals could buy into. The plans would be run by those individual members, not the government, and would compete with traditional private insurance.

But House Democrats say the co-ops are not strong enough to compete with private insurance companies and as a result, will not bring down costs.