The Hill:A public health insurance option took more hits Sunday as Sen. Kent Conrad described its pursuit as a “wasted effort” and an administration official said it is not an “essential” part of reform.
Conrad (D-N.D.), who supports setting up health insurance co-operatives with government seed money to compete with private insurers, described the public option as all but a lost cause.
“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.
The paper also points out that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told CNN's State of the Union that a public option was "not the essential element" in reforming the healthcare system. Obviously, I disagree.
The fact is that there doesn't have to be a public option in the Senate bill for there to be a public option in the bill that goes to the president. The house and senate bills will go to conference committee, where differences between the two bills will be ironed out. There's absolutely no legal reason why a lack of a public option in the senate bill means no public option in the final bill. If house Democrats stick to their guns, they may just possibly retain the public option, despite the senate's bill. House negotiators have no compulsion to abide by compromises made in the senate.
Maybe I'm wrong here or I'm missing something, but it seems to me that all is not lost until the president actually signs a bill. I'm not sure why more people aren't bringing this up, but it's a possibility that really needs to be discussed.
3 comments:
Kent Conrad makes me sick. All of these wishy washy Democrats are part of the problem, not the solution. President Obama better stick to his guns and get this done, any way he has to.
Without a single-payer system or at least a public option, we will be screwed worse than we are now.
PUSH BACK against the Kent Conrads of congress.
PUSH BACK against the Chuck Grassleys of the debate.
They're pushing with the weight of millions of dollars A DAY and thousands of lobbyists, many of them working for MAX BAUCUS, and they're trying to break the President like they broke the Clintons, and many other reformers in our history.
Talk of reform, or public options, is always met with the monied wrath of a million shouting misinformed lunatics, most of them fans of Glenn Beck and on Medicaid.
PUSH BACK and call a Senator or a Representative. Call the White House!
Let them know scenes like these and ESPECIALLY THESE make America the laughingstock of the world when we're allowing the screamers and deceivers the carry the narrative.
THE WHITE HOUSE
Comments: 202-456-1111
Switchboard: 202-456-1414
Harry Reid (D-NV)
Phone: 202-224-3542
Max Baucus (D-MT)
Phone: 202-224-2651
Demand that Rescission be illegal, demand urban and rural access, demand affordability, remind them of the 46 million that have only cattle call clinics to rely upon, remind them that current costs for healthcare in America is running FOUR TIMES the military budget and rising remind them we are NOT #1 and the W.H.O ranks us 37th in the world with unacceptable infany mortality rates, demand and end to refusing pre-existing conditions....and most of all demand NO INDIVIDUAL MANDATE.
DO SOMETHING or don't complain when the powers of greed and evil push us off a cliff.
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