Chicago Tribune:Despite months of seeming ambivalence about creating a government health insurance plan, the Obama White House has launched an intensifying behind-the-scenes campaign to get divided Senate Democrats to take up some version of the idea in the weeks just ahead.
President Barack Obama has long advocated a so-called public option, while at the same time repeatedly expressing openness to other ways to offer consumers a potentially more affordable alternative to health plans sold by private insurers.
But now, senior administration officials are holding private meetings almost daily at the Capitol with senior Democratic staff to discuss ways to include a version of the public plan in the health care bill that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., plans to bring to the Senate floor later this month, according to senior Democratic congressional aides.
Among those regularly in the meetings are Obama's top health care adviser, Nancy-Ann DeParle, aides to Reid, and Senate finance and health committee staff, both of which developed health care bills.
"The challenge is to go to the (Senate) floor, hold the deal," Steve Elmendorf, a former chief of staff to former House Democratic leader Dick Gephardt and current lobbyist said. "[The White House is] more involved than people think. They have a plan and a strategy, and they know what they want to get and they work with people to get it."
Given some of the things Harry Reid has said about what constitutes a "public option," it'd be nice to have some idea what the administration was pushing for; is there a line in the sand or will they settle for a some weird hybrid and call it a "public option?"
I hate having to say we'll wait and see, but it looks like we're going to have to wait and see.
1 comments:
Huzzah! Maybe there is hope for Main Street after all.
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