The White House sought to reassure jittery supporters Monday that President Obama is not abandoning the fight for a public health insurance option.This is what happened--the AP wrote a story saying that Kathleen Sebelius, on This Week this past Sunday, signaled that the White House was abandoning the public option. I've watched Obama's people day in and day out and Sebelius didn't say anything different, neither did Gibbs, but an AP writer thought they saw something. The AP story gets picked up everywhere and then the rest of the media feels like it has to follow on. In fact, they have no choice. If a media outlet didn't follow on, it would appear as if they weren't in the know. The media is hyper sensitive because they're always looking to be first to break news.
President Obama "believes the public option is the best way" to reform health care, a White House aide says.
The assurance came amid a media firestorm ignited over the weekend by administration officials seeming to indicate a willingness to drop such an option in order to secure congressional approval of a health care reform bill.
The verbal maneuvering reflected the steep political challenge facing an administration trying to balance the competing priorities of the more conservative Senate and the more liberal House of Representatives.
"The president has always said that what is essential is that health insurance reform must lower costs, ensure that there are affordable options for all Americans, and it must increase choice and competition in the health insurance market," White House aide Linda Douglass said in a written statement.
"He believes the public option is the best way to achieve those goals." CNN
On W.H. officials’ rhetoric in recent days on the public option: "If it was a signal, it was a dog whistle that we started blowing about three months ago, and it just got picked up," Gibbs said. "It’s crazy. It’s not a signal. It’s what we’ve been saying for months on this. The goal is choice and competition. The preference is the public plan. If there are others that have ideas on how we obtain choice and competition in a normally closed private ins market for people who are looking to buy private insurance … but enter a market that only has one entity in it, we’re certainly happy to look at those plans.” -Obama has not reached out to "liberals or lawmakers" on their concern about the fate of public option. “He’s not made any calls," Gibbs said. PoliticoAmericans may be chickening out, falling prey to wingnut propaganda, according to a new poll, but Linda Douglass insists nothing has changed:
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