A couple of high-profile appearances on the Sunday morning news circuit have stirred the pot in the debate regarding the current health care legislation. One of the biggest debates has been the public option that President Obama and many Democrats have been pushing for since the 2008 campaign trail. The public option would provide a government-run health insurance program that would compete against private insurance companies. This option would be to not only allow an affordable choice in health care for Americans, but it would also drive down the costs of insurance premiums and prescriptions in general. Republicans have fought the public option for fear of what a government-controlled health care system may do to the insurance industry.
Though the administration been in favor of the public option, they suddenly seem to be withdrawing their support. The continued public outrage by Republicans at town hall meetings, including threats of violence, have apparently caused the current administration to take a step back from public option and instead look towards compromising with Republicans by exploring nonprofit insurance cooperatives as an alternative.
The idea that the administration might be stepping away from its once firm public option plan came Sunday when the topic came up for both Kathleen Sebelius, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, while on CNN’s “State of the Union” and for Robert Gibbs, the president’s press secretary, while making an appearance on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
“I think there will be a competitor to private insurers,” explained Sebellius on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “That’s really the essential part, is you don’t turn over the whole new marketplace to private insurance companies and trust them to do the right thing. We need some choices, we need some competition.”
While on CBS Gibbs echoed the sentiments. “What I am saying is the bottom line for this for the president is, what we have to have is choice and competition in the insurance market.”
Whether the President has enough votes to pass health care reform with the public option seems to be the million-dollar question. The portion of the bill that deals with the mistakenly referred to “death panels" has already been removed, in spite of highly Democratic support for the program which would have offered families end-of-life counseling.
Though compromise is the name of the game in politics, it is disconcerting to see the Democrats have to bend so much to appease the Republicans, especially considering a majority of their outrage is based on misconceptions and half-truths.
While the cries coming from town hall meetings across the country may be loud, they do not outnumber the majority of people of who, in 2008, voted in not just a Democratic president, but a Democratic majority in both houses.
When the voters elected the Democratic majority they were also voting in favor of health care reform that consisted of a public option. This is something that all Democratic leaders should consider between now and September when the bill officially goes up for a vote.
