President Barack Obama restated his commitment to include a public option in health care reform, even as a key, bipartisan Senate panel was stripping the provision from their plan.
The disparity sets up a showdown as the clock ticks down to lawmakers’ August recess, amid a White House offensive to keep reform alive.
“We do think that it makes sense to have a public option alongside the private option,” Obama told an AARP town hall. “I think that helps keep the insurance companies honest, because now they have someone to compete with.”
Members of the Senate Finance Committee were devising a bill that would create a nonprofit cooperative to sell insurance, in lieu of Obama’s preferred, government-run public option.
The measure, described as preliminary, also would strip out mandates for employers to offer coverage to workers, and would bar insurers from denying coverage for pre-existing conditions, among other provisions.
The bipartisan group’s proposal is significantly different from a House version crafted by Democrats, which keeps employer mandates and the public option intact. Even so, the House version of the bill is beset by political problems, including resistance from moderate Democrats.
At the White House, press secretary Robert Gibbs was noncommittal on whether Obama will accept co-ops as a substitute for a public, government-run health care option.
“I know the president’s test is do we have adequate choice and competition for private insurance,” Gibbs said.
Obama has been pushing hard for a public health care option, to be run as a nonprofit entity that would provide a low-cost alternative to private insurance and help keep prices down systemwide.
Republicans and other critics have assailed the plan as a government takeover of health care — a tactic Obama has called “misinformation.”
“The reason this has been controversial is, you know, a lot of people have heard this phrase ‘socialized medicine,’ ” Obama said. “Nobody is talking about that. We’re saying, let’s give you a choice.”
Work by the Senate Finance Committee group, comprised of three Republicans and three Democrats, presents a challenge to the president’s stated goal of having a final plan that draws bipartisan support.
If the plan advances, Obama may have to choose between accepting health care reform that does meet his objectives, or face the political fallout of rejecting a bipartisan compromise after pushing for one.
Gibbs said Obama is not prepared to sign whatever bill comes his way and declare it a victory.
“I think I heard somebody say, and I apologize for not knowing exactly who, that the president doesn’t care what he gets, he just wants to sign something called reform,” Gibbs said. “That could not be farther from the truth.”
And Obama, who has taken a largely hands-off role in crafting health care legislation, will play a more active role in working out differences between House and Senate versions of the reform bills, Gibbs said.
