Pelosi digs in on public option

“There is strong support in the House for a public option,” Pelosi said on Monday, referring back to a statement President Barack Obama made in March in which he declared a public option will “give consumers more choices” and “keep the private sector honest.”

Pelosi pointed out that a public option is the main component of all three versions of health reform legislation that are circulating in the House as well as the committee-passed Democratic version in the Senate.

But neither the House nor the Senate has been able to come up with enough support to pass the public option plan, and attention is now turning to a Senate bipartisan plan that would eschew a public option in favor of an insurance co-operative. Even the White House has signaled it will consider a co-op instead of a public plan.

Despite Pelosi’s statement, there have been many signs that the House is preparing to accept a bill without a public option, either in its own legislation, or the compromise bill that is agreed upon between the House and Senate later this year.

The House is expected to take up its own health care bill in September, but it will likely have to have some major changes in it because many House moderates, including vulnerable freshmen Democrats, said in July that they will not vote for the House bill in its current form. Complaints about the House bill from constituents at town hall meetings are likely to reinforce resistance from those lawmakers.

Pelosi hinted to reporters in July that even she would be open to something less than a government-run option if it meant passing a health care reform bill, and she said she believes the more than 80 members of the most liberal faction of the House Democratic caucus would ultimately vote for a bill even if it did not include the public plan.