Obama Did NOT Campaign on Public Option

As someone who has watched every media interview and campaign speech and every Obama speech once he was elected President (all of his speeches are posted on this blog), I know that Obama didn't campaign on the public option, contrary to Ezra Klein's opinion:

Oy. I'll defend the argument that the health-care bill that looks likely to pass is structurally similar to the health-care proposal released by the Obama campaign. But it's impossible to defend Obama's statement that "I didn't campaign on the public option." For one thing, it was in his campaign plan, which is to say, he campaigned on it. The proposal (pdf) assured voters that Obama's plan will "establish a new public insurance program available to Americans who neither qualify for Medicaid or SCHIP nor have access to insurance through their employers." WaPo

Klein is violating the spirit of Obama's intentions. The "public insurance program" in Obama's campaign PDF is not the same as today's current public option. Media people like to manipulate information to meet their preconceived notions. In this case, Klein is trying to give an example as to why the left is losing faith in Obama:

And it's a good example of why the left is losing its trust in Obama.

I am so tired of the manipulations by the left and right media. Ideology, people set in their ways, is why things don't get done in Washington. As someone who doesn't subscribe to any ideology, it's easy to see what's going on here. A lot of people on the left propped Obama up to be what they wanted him to be. Same for the right. The wingnuts are just in outer space with their far out preconceived ideas.

In fact, Obama's never advocated strongly for the public option in its current form because he saw it as ONE way to meet his goals, not the only way. He has received a lot of criticism for not insisting on the public option as we know it. I think Obama recognized early on that the public option in its current form would be a political football between the left and the right. If so much attention hadn't been paid to the public option, health care might be further along. But as usual, the left and the right decided to make political mincemeat of it, which served as a distraction. Here we are with the left-most media still politicizing the public option.

Olympia Snowe Suggests Transitional Tax Credit

Was it strange to turn on the TV in August and hear Glenn Beck spinning wild tales about "death panels"?

I was stunned. And I still am stunned. It's reflective of the discourse. People want us to reform the health-care system, but they're not sure we can get it right. And that's understandable, to be honest with you. I don't think Congress has lived up to the standards that elected officials in the U.S. Congress should have in these monumental times. If I think back to Social Security and Medicare, for example, they did garner broader support in terms of passage.

Medicare and Social Security were much more liberal than anything we're discussing now, and they still had much more bipartisan support. Are we dealing with a different political system?

Unfortunately, the political system today preys more on people's fears than their hopes. We have an impending crisis, and we can't seem to muster the political capacity or will to forge political consensus. I don't expect it to be easy, but I would expect there would be more willingness to work together. Read Ezra Kleins Q&A with Snowe here.

Snowe on a transitional tax credit, which would give people benefits sooner:

If the bill passed $900 billion, but did so in a deficit-neutral way, could you support that?

Yes, if you could do it in a neutral way. I was talking to Senator [Debbie] Stabenow [D-Mich.] the other day about bringing some of these benefits forward in some way.

So they would begin before 2013?

Maybe a transitional tax credit that gives people a means to access health insurance. We did that in the Medicare prescription drug benefit -- we gave them a drug card worth $600 before the full program was implemented. It was a transitional benefit. Otherwise, people will be wondering why they're not realizing benefits sooner. But we'd need money for that.

I also think we should include something on medical malpractice. I can't imagine why we wouldn't. Maine has a very successful dispute-resolution process. It's been in force for 25 years. That's one dimension that has contributed significantly to rising costs.

Lynn Woolsey: We Got Our Marching Orders

Looks like progressives are moving ahead. Lynn Woolsey says progressives will define the public option:

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Health Reform Not Likely Without at Least a Few Republicans

The bottom line is that democrats need every vote they can get and they may have to scale back the public option.
Without republicans (and including the blue dog democrats and Robert Byrd, who's ailing) the only way to get health care reform is through reconciliation and that's an iffy process.