As I noted below, comments made by HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on CNN’s Sunday “State of the Union” program seemed to indicate that the administration was willing to compromise on the “public option” (a government alternative to private insurance companies, i.e. socialized medicine) of Obama’s health care agenda. Not so according to former DNC Chairman Howard Dean, who was trotted out this morning to shore up support do damage control for the administration’ initial initiative:
Former Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean, a leading figure in the liberal wing of his party, said Monday he doubts there can be meaningful health care reform without a direct government role. Dean urged the Obama administration to stand by statements made early on in the debate in which it steadfastly insisted that such a public option was indispensable to genuine change, saying that Medicare and the Veterans Administration are “two very good programs that have been around for a long time.” Dean appeared on morning news shows Monday amid increasing indications the Obama White House is retreating from the public option in the face of vocal opposition from Republicans and some vocal participants at a town-hall-style meetings around the country.
This appears to confirm the comments of at least two (out of three!) unnamed administration officials, who communicated last night to The Atlantic:
An administration official said tonight that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius “misspoke” when she told CNN this morning that a government run health insurance option “is not an essential part” of reform. This official asked not to be identified in exchange for providing clarity about the intentions of the President. The official said that the White House did not intend to change its messaging and that Sebelius simply meant to echo the president, who has acknowledged that the public option is a tough sell in the Senate and is, at the same time, a must-pass for House Democrats, and is not, in the president’s view, the most important element of the reform package.
A second official, Linda Douglass, director of health reform communications for the administration, said that President Obama believed that a public option was the best way to reduce costs and promote competition among insurance companies, that he had not backed away from that belief, and that he still wanted to see a public option in the final bill.
“Nothing has changed.,” she said. “The President has always said that what is essential that health insurance reform lower costs, ensure that there are affordable options for all Americans and increase choice and competition in the health insurance market. He believes that the public option is the best way to achieve these goals.”
A third White House official, via e-mail, said that Sebelius didn’t misspeak. “The media misplayed it,” the third official said.
But perhaps even more alarming is the suspicion advanced by The American Spectator that the administration is offering health-care co-ops now as a way to have the public option, by stealth, in the future:
“The federal government would have to seed money into the co-op program,” says a White House source. “Depending on who you talk to, it’s between $6 billion and $10 billion in funding, along with a congressionally mandated and administration designated board to oversee the co-op at least initially.”
According to some of the more progressive members of the administration, this board, which would set the policies for the co-op plan’s implementation and operation, along with the strict requirements for financial stability, might be a back-door way to “eventually,” as another administration put it, allow the federal government to take over the co-op and transition it to a plan more closely resembling the “public option.”
“It might not happen as fast as we would want, but based on the challenges the astroturfers and insurance industry have put in front of us for the full plan as the President has laid out, the co-op plan probably isn’t going to achieve what Conrad and its supporters want,” says an aide to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. “The minute this co-op runs into financial difficulty with low reserves” — some estimates believe the co-op could become the third-largest health-care insurance provider in the country — “it’s the government that’s going to have to bail it out, and then we’re looking at the clear path to the public option.”
Perhaps this is the way they do things in Chicago. Although they do make good pizza and sausage there!
