Posted on 07/29/2009 12:07:11 PM PDT by FromLori
Liberals who see the effort to overhaul health care as a once-in-a-generation opportunity are growing anxious that a final deal -- and a Democratic president they backed -- will negotiate away their top priority: a public plan to compete with private insurers.
Some Democrats are threatening to oppose any bill that excludes this option, and sympathetic outside groups are pressuring wavering lawmakers. Health Care for America Now, a liberal group, and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees spent $800,000 on television ads targeting moderate Democrats, citing their opposition to a public option.
Meanwhile, MoveOn.org announced a series of television ads Monday to run in Washington, D.C., and on national cable networks accusing the Republicans of playing political football with health care. Americans United For Change, another liberal group, announced a radio ad targeting moderate Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine, a key swing vote.
The liberal anxiety also is fueled by the White House, which has sent mixed messages. Asked Tuesday about the likelihood that the Senate Finance Committee bill will lack a vigorous public plan, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs declined to pass judgment. "I think the broader principle is that, do we have a mechanism that provides adequate choice and competition," he said.
President Barack Obama regularly emphasizes that he supports a vigorous public option. But in talking with lawmakers privately, and when asked directly by reporters, Mr. Obama has made it clear that he wouldn't necessarily veto a bill without a public option. That tends to infuriate liberals, who argue that a true public option is essential.
"Their message is, we support a public plan -- but we may not support a public plan," said Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.). "If that's not a mixed message, you tell me what is."
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
The communists in the House will pass the takeover option. The Senante will pass a plan without. Several RINOS will defect. It will go to Reconciliation and YEP SOCIALIZED MEDICINE>
Actually, it is more like fascism, not socialism.
More “public-private partnership” blather. The public, the government, uses its powers to corral new clients for private insurance companies. Also, direct payments to the private insurance companies for the “poor.”
The “public option” was never going to be. The insurance companies, HMOS, what have you, did not spend hundreds of millions of dollars lobbying and such to have themselves undercut by a public plan not burdened with high executive salaries and bonuses, shareholder payouts, and other expenses.
What Liberals better fear even more is the backlash of the American people. Ain’t gonna be pretty.
I have always heard we will end up with 4 government sponsored Insurance companys. That is why I got out of the insurance biz when they started HMO plans. No competition just rationing and administrative services. There is no competition in “managed economys” just ridiculous 5 year plans. I am planning my escape.
I think I want to be a bureaucrat. I’d like a cushy job with a big office and large lobby filled with folks waiting to see me. Of course, the chairs would be none too comfortable while they sat and waited.
I’d wave in each in turn, impatiently, as though it were their fault they were kept waiting 45 minutes past the scheduled appointment. I’d hear their gripes, then tell them why I was denying their request.
“Because you’re too fat”, I’d say, or “because it says here you drink a 6-pack of beer a week...A WEEK! No, no, I can’t possibly let you see your own doctor...”
It’d be fun to be a health care petty tyrant.
They will roll over and play dead like puppies they are. I have no faith in the Sheeples.
What Liberals better fear even more is the backlash of the American people. Ain’t gonna be pretty.
Exactly!
You are so right. They are history.
For some reason I don’t see any GOP Senators supporting the Public Option. of course, I could be wrong.
Best case scenario is that the deal they cut will be so distasteful to the marxist-type Democrats that the whole thing just goes down in flames.
It’s not “like fascism”. It is Fascism.
They will coerce private sector businesses to do their bidding, in the name of the State.
Somewhere in Hell Mussolini is smiling.
A few years ago I would have agreed with you, but since less and less of the electorate is white (and more likely to vote GOP), the socialists have the advantage.
90% of the electorate was white in 1976, now it’s 70%.
The RINOS will support a Senate plan without the “public option” Just to get the damn thing to “reconciliation” Do you not understand what these traitorus RINOS are doing?
We also only got 54% of the white vote in 2008. We now only get the whites in large numbers in the South and interior west.
The American people have fought and beat enemies worse than those in Congress. I don’t think they will roll over when faced with euthanasia decreed by Big Brother in the form of denial of medical care.
We only now are realizing the mistake that was made with Fannie Mae. Now that that's on the ropes here we are coming up with another scheme which is even worse.
I don’t think anyone in hell is smiling. We need to do our best to replicate hell here on earth to stop these tyrants.
That was then this is now.
“I fear all we have done is awaken a sleeping giant and have filled him with a terrible resolve.”
Elitists and in-your-face politicians in the House and Senate have wakened the American people. IMO, they’re TOAST.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qn71-wNccsw
The GOP would get more voters, period, if they acted like a small government party.
Trying to appeal to liberals would equal disaster.
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