Pelosi Says She Can’t Pass Bill Without Public Option (Update2)

[KoKo]

Pelosi Says She Can’t Pass Bill Without Public Option (Update2)
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By Kristin Jensen and Joseph Galante

Aug. 20 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she won’t be able to pass health-care legislation in her chamber if the measure doesn’t include a government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurers.

“There’s no way I can pass a bill in the House of Representatives without a public option,” Pelosi, a California Democrat, said at a press conference in San Francisco today.

The idea, a central component of President Barack Obama’s effort to overhaul the nation’s health-care system, has emerged as a flash point in his party. Suggestions by administration officials in recent days that the White House might be willing to give up on the public plan drew protests from some House Democrats.

Obama today reiterated his support for the proposal.

“If we have a public option in there it will help keep insurance companies honest,” he told a group of community volunteers in Washington.

Lawmakers are attempting to rein in health-care costs and extend coverage to many of the 46 million uninsured people in the U.S. Opponents of the public option argue that it would expand the role of government too much and undercut the market for private insurers such as Indianapolis-based WellPoint Inc.

‘Bureaucratic Nightmare’

The public-option concept has been criticized by Republicans such as Wyoming Senator Mike Enzi, who say they might be willing to support the overall legislation. Enzi is among a group of six senators working on a bipartisan compromise in the Senate Finance Committee who are scheduled to discuss the legislation by telephone this evening.

“For millions of Americans, the government-run plan would turn into a bureaucratic nightmare,” Enzi wrote in a USA Today opinion piece yesterday. “In the finance committee, six of us leading the negotiations are working from the premise that there will not be a government-run plan.”

Enzi and other negotiators plan to convene at 9 p.m. Washington time today for about 1 1/2 hours. The group is led by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat, and also includes Republicans Charles Grassley of Iowa and Olympia Snowe of Maine, as well as Democrats Kent Conrad of North Dakota and Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico.

Still Negotiating

The finance panel is the only one of five congressional committees with jurisdiction over health care still working on a plan. Instead of a public option, the senators in the finance negotiating group are considering allowing the creation of nonprofit cooperatives that could get government seed money.

Three House committees and one Senate panel have approved their versions of the legislation on party-line votes. All these proposals contain some sort of public option.

Pelosi, who spoke to reporters today after meeting with community religious leaders, said Congress has to take “comprehensive” action on the health-care issue now while it has the chance.

“I don’t know how you would scale it down,” she said.

more at.....
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601110&sid=aXYFpPCWavpI

[Horse with no Name]

1. That was soooo....last August. n/t

[tridim]

2. The House bill passed with a public option. nt

[Vincardog]

3. Good tell Grassley ad the ConservaDEMS to STFU and pass what the people want.

[highplainsdem]

4. Shhhhh. Might upset some DUers to remind them of what our party's leaders said.

No matter what the final HCR bill looks like, no matter how different it is from what they told us was crucial, just repeat, as they tell us now:

It's a great bill.

It's a great bill.

It's a great bill.

Hypnotized yet?

No?

Okay, try repeating this:

We'll fix it later.

We'll fix it later.

We'll fix it later.

Zzzzzz...

That's it. Back to sleep till the next election.

[Faryn Balyncd]

5. K&R....& she better make sure it's a REAL Public Option, & not some phoney name game!

We can afford heathcare for all.


But we CAN NOT afford to pass a BAD bill that mandates people to buy insurance, forever, from a cartel.

[burrowowl]

6. K&R

Call your Reps!

[David Zephyr]

7. Thanks KoKo for keeping us updated.

:)

[TheBigotBasher]

8. Yet again, Nancy delivers.

Yet again, Reid, not so much.

[FLAprogressive]

9. Damn Nancy! Now don't let us down, AGAIN.

easier said than done, unfortunately.

[WeDidIt]

10. She passed it. Wiht a PO

Now it's going to conference and the political landscape is different.

[IsItJustMe]

11. Me thinks it's all just a cruel joke payed on us one more time.

[Heywood J]

12. For the first time in about ever,

I'm impressed with a stance Pelosi has taken.

“For millions of Americans, the government-run plan would turn into a bureaucratic nightmare,” Enzi wrote in a USA Today opinion piece yesterday. “In the finance committee, six of us leading the negotiations are working from the premise that there will not be a government-run plan.”

Let me guess, all Republicans or Joe Lieberman? Nothing says effective negotiations like starting from a premise that the other side of the table has rejected several times and continues to reject. Besides, if it's such a nightmare, surely Americans will leave (or not choose) the public plan in droves for their other option - private insurers. That would be the free-market in action.