House Progressive Caucus Co-chairwoman Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., said it would be a “grave error” for Congress to draft a health care reform bill that did not include a government-run health insurance option and she believes there are enough liberal lawmakers to block its passage.
Woolsey said she was setting up a meeting with President Barack Obama, whose administration has signaled that a public option won’t be necessary for a health care reform bill.
Obama will likely announce a shift in policy Wednesday, when he is scheduled to address a joint session of Congress on the topic of health insurance reform.
A public option, Woolsey told The Examiner, “isn’t just what I want, it is what the American people want, and not including the public option will be a grave error because that is the only way will achieve real health care reform.”
“The president must support” a strong public option, Woolsey said, “and he must tell the Senate to get its act together.”
Contentious town hall meetings with lawmakers and recent poll numbers have shown the public is wary of many aspects of the Democratic plan, particularly the $1 trillion-plus price tag.
Obama is also faced with the fact that it may be impossible to pass a public option in the Senate, thanks in part to resistance from moderate Democrats.
“He can cater to the moderates,” Woolsey warned. “But we are his base. We represent his base and that is why he is in the White House and that is why we have such a big majority in the House of Representatives. People in this country were promised change. Real change. And health care reform was held out there as a major part of that.”
Democratic strategists say Obama’s softening on the public option will not necessarily alienate his liberal base.
“The public option, for all the fanfare around it, was never the linchpin of health care,” said Richard Goodstein, former adviser to President Bill Clinton. “Insurance reforms, greater access to health care by the uninsured, cost containment over time, and incorporation of best practices in treatment and preventative medicine are.”
For liberals, Goodstein said, “falling on their sword over the public option is not wise, and certainly not politically beneficial.”
Woolsey has recruited more than 80 fellow liberals to sign a letter promising to vote “no” on any bill that leaves out a “robust public plan.” That’s enough to block a bill despite the hefty Democratic majority in the House. Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the leadership was “committed” to passing the public option.
But in the Senate, prospects for passing a public option weaken by the day.
Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., announced Wednesday that she would not support a bill that included 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.
