Axelrod on Capitol Demonstrators: 'Wrong' on Health Care

Sept. 14, 2009— -- President Obama's Wednesday night speech to the joint session of Congress -- and Rep. Joe Wilson's "You lie!" outburst during the speech -- galvanized Democrats' resolve to achieve health care reform this year, and helped recapture momentum for the president after a summer of beleaguered debate, administration officials said Sunday.

Against a backdrop of tens of thousands of Americans marching on Washington to oppose health care reform, the White House dismissed the president's critics, reinforced his message while offering few specifics, and continued to back away from insistence on the public option.

White House Senior Adviser David Axelrod had strong words for Americans who demonstrated at the Capitol in opposition of the president's health care reform plans.

"My message to them is, they're wrong," Axelrod said on CBS's "Face the Nation."

"I don't believe that some of the angriest, most strident voices we saw during the summer were representative of the thousands of town hall meetings that went on around the country that came off peacefully, that were constructive, people voicing their points of view," Axelrod said.

Nevertheless, Axelrod and White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs addressed a major concern Americans are anxious about -- the cost of health care reform. The president declared Wednesday during his speech, "I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits -- either now or in the future. No ifs, ands, or buts."

"He is absolutely committed that he will... he will not sign a bill unless he can say to the American people honestly that this bill will not add to our deficit," Axelrod said.

However, the White House offered few specifics.

Gibbs: Public Option is 'Not All of Health Care'

"The president outlined a plan to Congress on Wednesday that first cuts waste and inefficiency from Medicare and Medicaid dollars that are being spent on health care, but aren't making us safer or healthier, and the revenue increase that the president has proposed is actually on insurance companies that offer gold-plated health care plans," Gibbs said on CNN's "State of the Union."

Axelrod and Gibbs continued to downplay the role of a so-called public option in a health care reform bill.

"He continues to believe it's a good idea," Axelrod said. "He continues to advocate it, and I'm not willing to accept that it's not going to be in the final package. But what he also said and what we've all said is that this is not the whole of health insurance reform."

Gibbs said the president "prefers" the public option.

"However, he said what's most important is choice and competition," Gibbs said. "And for our Democratic friends, the public option is a means to an end, but it is not all of health care."

Maine Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe, who is working to bridge the gap between Democratic and Republican lawmakers in the Senate, said it was "unfortunate" Obama was unwilling to take the public option off the table.

"It leaves open a legislative possibility that creates uncertainty in this process. And I think it could give real momentum to building a consensus on other issues," Snowe said on CNN.

Snowe said that as an alternative to a public option, the bill from a bipartisan group of senators in the Senate Finance Committee will include a co-op -- a group of non-profit insurers that would be set up by the government, but controlled by its enrolled members.

"We'll be using the co-op as an option at this point, as the means for injecting competition into the process," Snowe said.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Tex., who charged earlier that the president was simply paying lip service to bipartisan support for health care reform, acknowledged the president put forth "good ideas" in his speech, but said he would like to see an actual bill reflecting those ideas.

"It was a good speech. But he said -- he described what he called his plan, and so far we have not seen his plan. There's a difference between campaigning, giving a good speech, and actually governing," Cornyn said on CNN. "And I think we're seeing that disconnect here. The president needs to work with us to make hard decisions in order to solve the problem, not just give a speech."

Howard Dean: Both Dems and GOP Have Rammed Bills Through

Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrinch echoed Cornyn's sentiment.

"I can go through the president's speech and find a lot of things that I like. Then I go to the House Democratic bill and I don't find a single one of those things reflected in the legislation," Gingrich said on CNN.

Former Democratic National Committee Chair Howard Dean suggested invoking the reconciliation process in the Senate, where only 51 votes would be needed.

"Republicans and Democrats both rammed things through. At the end of the day, the American people want a bill. They're not going to care if it's reconciliation or if it's ramming it through. What they want is a decent bill that makes sense to them," Dean said.

With the president's upcoming health care rally this Thursday, and the bipartisan "Gang of Six" senators expected to unveil a bill without the controversial public option, this week could be pivotal as to whether the president and Democrats can achieve bipartisan health care reform this year, without "ramming it through."