 merrie says: "We've gotten to this point where health care on the left is determined by the breadth of the public option. I don't understand how that has become the measure of whether what we achieve is health-care reform." "It's a mystifying thing," he added. "We're forgetting why we are in this." Another top aide expressed chagrin that a single element in the president's sprawling health-care initiative has become a litmus test for whether the administration is serious about the issue. "It took on a life of its own," he said. In search of new momentum, Obama plans to discuss the matter Thursday with thousands of his most loyal supporters in a nationwide "strategy call" hosted by Organizing for America, a grass-roots arm of the Democratic National Committee. He is likely to repeat what he and his top surrogates have said for months: that he will not "draw a line in the sand" about the inclusion of a public plan and that no one provision is a "deal breaker" . . . as long as the final legislation embraces his broad principles for reform. “That’s what we said in June; that’s what we’ve said in July; that’s what we’ve said,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters Tuesday. Anger about an optional government-sponsored insurance program has been simmering for months, but the flare-up has created legislative and communications challenges for the White House at a critical point in Obama’s push for reform. Polls suggest that support is dwindling for widespread changes to the health-care system, and Democratic lawmakers have begun second-guessing the bipartisan strategy advocated by Obama and being pursued in the Senate Finance Committee. ... Republicans signaled Tuesday that dropping the public option would not garner additional GOP backing. Jon Kyl (Ariz.), the second-ranking Senate Republican leader, criticized an alternative idea of creating a private insurance cooperative, calling it a “Trojan horse” that was effectively the same as the public option. “It doesn’t matter what you call it, they want it to accomplish something Republicans are opposed to,” he said. Kyl’s comments came as other conservative Republicans joined in to bash the co-ops idea. Rep. Tom Price (Ga.) said, “A co-op that is simply another name for a public option, or government-run plan, will be rejected by the American people.” One Democratic strategist... * |
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