White House Insists “Nothing Has Changed” on Public Health Insurance Option

Yea nothing has changed. He hasn’t changed his lack of support for Public Option. He is still out there caving to the Right. He is still not fighting for the Public Option. He is still not leading, but pushing some nebulous program. He looks, acts, presents himself as Lame Duck

Obama doesn’t need the right. The Democrats in Congress know they can pass Obamacare without a single Republican vote. They won’t do it because they know they’ll be voted out of office in 2010/2012.
The polls all show declining support for Obamacare. In fact, the public doesn’t like much that Obama has done – cash for clunkers, the bail-outs, the spendulous bill that was nothing but a big porkfest for liberal constituencies.
Stop blaming the Republicans, Dems! If you want socialized medicine, go for it. And we’ll see you at the polls in 2010.

Push the public option at your own peril. It does not work anywhere and will not work here. Still cannot believe the blatant ignorance of politicians who believe a public option is somehow the panacea for our health care deficiencies. Adding a third healthcare entitlement to the already bankrupt Medicare and Medicaid is a blantant fools strategy and cannot be called “reform” whatsoever. REAL reform is eliminating barriers to entry in the states so insurance companies can compete on price. REAL reform is addressing frivolous malpractice lawsuits. REAL reform is enabling consumers to take the healthcare of their choice from job to job and into retirement. A public option or single payer plan that will inevitably lead to people losing the quality and choice of care they receive now is NOT reform in any way unless you are a fan of socialism.

“REAL reform is eliminating barriers to entry in the states so insurance companies can compete on price.”
Yes so all the insurance companies can go to the state with the loosest regulations. No thanks.
“REAL reform is addressing frivolous malpractice lawsuits.”
Yes because remember how healthcare costs went down when state after state did tort reform? Oh yeah….it didn’t.
CBO does not consider tort reform to be a money saver.
“REAL reform is enabling consumers to take the healthcare of their choice from job to job and into retirement”
This is one of the few things the right wing is saying about healthcare reform that makes sense.

Medicare, VA, MediCaid, SCHIP.
All public options, all working and popular HERE.
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A perfect example of ongoing ignorance once again by Ryan C.
Medicare has an unfunded liability of at least $70,000,000,000,000 (that’s TRILLION). Who is going to pay for this, let alone any NEW public plan? Where is the money tree growing?

“He hasn’t changed his lack of support for Public Option.”
It is downright weird to suggest that a national health program — not that Oblabla HAS one, mind you — would be composed of “sliver”s.
Is Obama — or whoever put THOSE particular words into His flip-flapping mouth — hoping to evoke the movie “Sliver”, all about intimate surveillance in the wicked city?
Maybe He used the word as a threat to recalcitrant Congress-persons . . . since Obama and Axelrod have always made political hay by outing the uh indiscretions of others.
‘Bout time for THAT worm to turn …

Yes so all the insurance companies can go to the state with the loosest regulations. No thanks.
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Wrong again. Shocker. Ever hear of a little something called INTERSTATE COMMERCE LAW? The same sorts of laws that allow you to buy the same quality of food across the country while keeping your choices vast? The same sorts of laws that require autos to maintain a certain level of safety in their design, while allowing you to choose among various options? Reform many of these laws at the federal level to ensure and maintain a level playing field with certain standards of care that must be met, and certain states which are over regulated (due to horrendous malpractice tort risk) will come into line if/when insurance companies up and leave their states with all their employees. The politicians responsible for those same job losses will be out of a job in short order. Tort reform at the federal level will also ensure a more level playing field between states when it comes to malpractice suits. Why libs continue to cling to the special interests of the ABA is mind-boggling if they really want to lower the cost and increase the quality of healthcare.

Medicare, VA, MediCaid, SCHIP.
All public options, all working and popular HERE.
Posted by: Ryan C |
California is working too. And Chicago. And Fannie and Freddie. And Social Security.

Didn’t Jake just cover this today? The Whitehouse has been consistently vague on it’s position.
You can certainly fault the Whitehouse for not taking a firmer stand and trying to force specific positions onto Congress, but Mr Gibbs is absolutely right when he says their message has not changed. The only change has come from the headline writer’s spin.
From an earlier Political Punch:
“In June, I (Jake Tapper) asked President Obama if inclusion of the government-run public plan in health care reform was non-negotiable.
“We have not drawn lines in the sand, other than that reform has to control costs and that it has to provide relief to people who don’t have health insurance or are under-insured,” the president said. “…Right now, I will say that our position is that a public plan makes sense.””

“Look, the fact of the matter is there are not the votes in the U.S. Senate for the public option, there never have been,” Conrad said in an interview on “Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace.”
“So to continue to chase that rabbit is, I think, a wasted effort,” Conrad said.

Whole lotta confusion out there. The robots are suffering an anxiety attack.

… and their shortcomings are obvious to the American people.

I hope he don’t give up on the Public Option.

“A perfect example of ongoing ignorance once again by Ryan C.
Medicare has an unfunded liability of at least $70,000,000,000,000 ”
Medicare is fine till 2019 if nothing is done in the interim.
So will Republicans propose to end Medicare?

i mean its really time for change!!!!

Obama talks a lot and says nothing.Has anybody noticed that when he talks about Medicine and Physicians it is apparent that he has absolutely no idea about what he is talking about? Isn’t it apparent that when he gives his long-winded answers in his press conferences that he rarely if ever directly answers the questions -even more than one would expect of a politician?Does he really know the material?

Now we know why Obama voted present 129 times in the Senate.
It is much easier than actually having to take a stand for anything.
He has no backbone.

So the Obama administration thinks it’s worth looking completely disorganized and incompetent just to test the waters?
Just last week Summers and Giethner said BO might raise taxes then Gibbs had to come out and take it back.
What are these people doing?
And they want Americans to trust this administration to run health care?

I’m beginning to understand why Obama is hiding his college grades.
He’s really not that intelligent just good at BS.
Whenever he goes off script he says incredibly dumb things–as dumb as some of Biden’s comments.

I actually agree with Gibbs, having followed this closely and having bit a bit disappointed, but not confused at all. Gibbs said–
“The goals are choice and competition. His preference is a public option. If there are other ideas, he’s happy to look at them.”
Gibbs said there has been a “boring consistency” to the White House’s rhetoric on health care and challenged reporters to go back and look at the record. He turned the reporters’ questions into an opportunity to question the media coverage, saying it is “one of the more curious things” he’s seen.
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In this case, I think Gibbs is spot on, although Tapper did highlight something in a previous post — the President has said “We have not drawn lines in the sand, other than that reform has to control costs and that it has to provide relief to people who don’t have health insurance or are under-insured” and the president said, “Right now, I will say that our position is that a public plan makes sense.” He also said, “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.”
In the latter, IMO, the emphasis was on the exchanges, which he’s still talking up. I wish I could find the quotes in context, but by that time to me it also also had appeared as though he’d accepted Conrad’s idea of co-ops as a sort of public option he was open to, maybe, which technically, it isn’t really. Consumer-owned nonprofit cooperatives would sell insurance in competition with private industry, not unlike the way electric and agriculture co-ops operate. Not that Cato and conservatives like that option either.
I agree with Eugene Robinson on this one: “Giving up on the public option might be expedient. But we didn’t elect Obama to be an expedient president. We elected him to be a great one.” So there has to be a line in the sand somewhere. I think the President can be maddeningly vague at times, but I think he’s been consistently maddeningly vague on this one as he waits for the bills to come out of the House and Senate.

We are broke…

“I’m beginning to understand why Obama is hiding his college grades. He’s really not that intelligent just good at BS.”
He BS’ed himself all the way to graduating Harvard magna cum laude? Now that’s impressive!

We finally found the transparency this Administration promised! They are so incredibly transparent in the way they using the Sunday shows and other opportunities to float trail balloons all over the place in hopes of finding just the right phrases that will somehow help them explain the policy mess the have created.
Every time someone from this administration get in front of a microphone, I expect to see them wet a finger and stick up into the air!
It is amazing that this White House has so completely lost control of its own message. Then again, this is why they tried to cram this mess down the collective throats of the American public. Now they are desperately looking for the sugar that will allow them to get the people to swallow their “medicine”.

the bad thing about telling lies. and being the president are all those sound bytes from the past.you cant get away with saying your for something and now changing your mind because your the president. shame shame mr.president.

I guess Obama failed to check in with Nancy before he started tossing out feelers. Makes you wonder who is really running the government.

Jake, if you are really looking for conflicting statements in the health care debate, try Grassley on the “pulling the plug on grandma” garbage.
…crickets…
…crickets…
…crickets…
Ah, our cheap press at work…

The legacy of a thug is the lesson he leaves to posterity about how free people deal with their enemies. That will be Obama’s legacy. Best, of course, if he leaves no trace of himself in civilization at all.

THESE GOV’T OFFICIALS, INCLUDING THE PRESIDENT DO NOT UNDERSTAND THAT THEY ARE ONLY TEMP’S. THEIR JOB IS TO PROTECT THE CONSTITUTION AND THE PEOPLE
OF THE U.S. WHO PAY THEIR SALARIES. THEY WERE NOT ELECTED TO BECOME MASTERS OVER THE PEOPLE, THAT IS WHAT WE ESCAPED
FROM WHEN WE WROTE THE CONSTITUTION WWHICH SET US FREE FROM GOV’T. WE INTEND TO REMAIN FREE PEOPLE, WITHOUT THE BUNCH OF MISFITS NOW IN OFFICE FROM
OBAMA THROUGH PALOSI, REED AND ALL THE
FOOLS WHO MAKE UP OUR GOVERNMENT.

President Obama has the ability to be very clear about what he wants. He has had dozens of opportunities to publicly explain his vision for health care reform.
He can be as detailed as he chooses, and provide as much clarity on the issue as he wants.
Nobody should have to guess about what he really wants and what he’d veto.
Yet here we are guessing. That is obviously not by accident- it is the choice he’s made.

Only solution….vote EVERY one of them out of office. Then, election finance reform.

Sidney, calm down. Sheesh.
Your idea that government has to limit itself to defending the Constitution and its people, ignores and over-simplifies so much.
When the FDA lessens the chance of bad food getting to market, what are they doing but protecting the people? (the companies that get fines for having dirty facilities think the FDA is encroaching on their profits, trying to control them.) Defending the people from dying from food poisoning is as serious as defending them from an invading army.
In the same way, when you break down the health care problems we have in this country, (the U.S. spends more than any other country on health care per person but we are only rated 37th world-wide, 47 million of us don’t have health care, many more millions are under-insured, any of us can be dropped from our policies for pre-existing conditions determined and frequently unfairly, by the insurance companies; half of all bankruptcies in our country were for medical bills, with the majority of these unfortunate people having medical insurance, etc.) Providing health insurance that people with low incomes can afford to buy is protecting the people. Yes, they will be buying it, all but the very poorest will be paying.
Providing health insurance that people can afford will help small businesses that lose their best workers to big corporations that can give insurance at a lower cost because they are dealing in volume. As small businesses are the life-blood of our economy this is vitally important for all of us. They provide the innovation and millions of jobs in towns large and small that sustain our economy.
Providing an alternative to private insurance will help keep their premiums from skyrocketing every year for those of us who have those policies, because they will have real competition.
Health insurance isn’t a luxury but should be looked at as a necessity. There can’t be ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ without good health.
Sure, there isn’t anything about the FDA in the Constitution but the Founding Fathers couldn’t imagine the modern world we live in today. Our country is so much more crowded and complicated than when they wrote the Constitution, the dangers we need protection from are much greater than they could have imagined. Same with health care, it is too big a part of our lives to remain so unregulated and unavailable to a growing percentage of our population if we are able to remain strong as a country, economically, and physically healthy.

Friends, Health care for all should not be confused with defending the constitution–although government-provided health insurance would do exactly that. It is a simple matter. We live in a world where catastrophic injury or illness threatens to destroy our “life, liberty & pursuit of happiness”. Only the most wealthy of us does not have to worry about this. Providing free or low-cost health insurance to all, can give an enormous benefit to our well-being. And a benefit to our nation would be that of feeling protected so that our full potential of productivity will naturally be enhanced. It could be pointed out that that feeling of protection equates with the government services through their police power–providing security and law & order. That is what our constitution’s government set-up does. What is wrong with that?

“The American people have indicated they want no part of a public plan or socialized medicine”
According to an NBC News poll released today, 47% of Americans oppose the public plan, versus 43% who support it.
What do you think that 43% is made up of? Swiss cheese?

Health Care has become totally about politics. The Democrats are afraid of criticism if they actually do any real reform.
Have the played it out and realized they are going to end up despised by both the left and the right?

why do you people keep falling into the same argument? its not about health care reform, EVERYONE agrees that health care needs reform. obama’s idea sucks! its not free, its about achieving control over everyones life,
its not well thought out, the people giving him advice are all for babies and old folk (over 55) not getting any or limited care. and after all the trillions obama wants to spend it
STILL doesnt cover everyone. READ the damn bill! quit polarizing on the same argument! there isnt a single american out there who doesnt want everyone to have medical attention when they need it! why would you even think that?
there are several things that can be done with the current system to control cost WITHOUT the government sticking there nose into private matters. and lastly look at how the government runs things,,, they fail every single time!
overspending, crappy service. they just cant do the job! you know kinda like obama and the presidents job.