President Barack Obama’s signal that he will not insist his health care reform plan includes a government-run insurance option may ultimately do little to help Congress find enough consensus to pass legislation this year.
White House officials told reporters they were weighing a new plan to try to sell health care reform to a skeptical American public in the face of waning support and fears about the sweeping, $1 trillion Democratic proposal.
But the divisions in Congress may be impossible to overcome, particularly those within the Democratic Party.
While Obama may not insist on including a public options, more than 80 House Democrats will not vote for a bill that does not include one, which is enough to block legislation despite the party’s hefty House majority.
A House Democratic leadership aide said 82 lawmakers have signed on to a letter promising to vote “no” on any bill that leaves out a “robust public plan.”
And Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said on Tuesday, “We are fighting for the public option, and the leadership is committed to it.”
Obama’s move away from a public option is tied to the Senate, where it is looking more unlikely that Democratic leaders there would be able to come up with 59 votes within its own party, never mind an additional Republican vote that would be needed.
The only alternative is to use a parliamentary procedure that would allow passage with 51 votes but significantly weaken the bill.
A large group of moderate Senate Democrats have refused to sign on to the existing proposals, and one of them, Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., announced Wednesday that she would not support a bill that includes a public option because she believed it would be too expensive.
Lincoln told the Elder Law Task Force at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences that a public option would create another entitlement program.
“And we can’t afford that right now as a nation,” she said.
University of North Carolina political scientist Jon Oberlander said Obama may be trying to prepare his Democratic base for the chance that it may be impossible to pass a bill in Congress with a public option.
“And given all the political heat it is taking, downplaying the public option also could be a strategy to stabilize public opinion and change the focus of the debate to more favorable territory — consumer protections and reform of the insurance industry,” Oberlander said.
A White House spokesman told The Examiner on Wednesday that Obama has not said he would drop the idea of implementing a public option.
