Surprise headline! "Government health insurance option appears doomed"

[Bluebear]

Well, knock me over with a "we don't even know what is going to be in the final bill~!!11" feather. Don't miss "little - - - IF ANY - - - time" spent on it in White House meetings.


====

WASHINGTON – Senior House Democrats have largely abandoned hopes of including a government-run insurance option in the final compromise health care bill taking shape, according to several officials, and are pushing for other measures to rein in private insurers.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other senior Democrats told President Barack Obama in recent meetings they want the legislation to strip the insurance industry of a long-standing exemption from federal antitrust laws, officials said. That provision is in the House-passed measure, but was omitted from the bill that the Senate passed on Christmas Eve.

They also want the final measure to include a House-passed proposal for a nationwide insurance exchange, to be regulated by the federal government, where consumers could shop for private coverage. The Senate bill calls for a state-based system of exchanges...

"I think the House is very much of a view that before they'd consider dropping the public option" they have to be assured of a bill that achieves the goals they wanted the public option to meet. But officials said little if any time has been spent in White House meetings on the issue, and there was scant discussion of it during a conference call for members of the Democratic rank and file earlier this week.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_health_care_overhaul

[gateley]

1. I was pinning my waning hopes on the House...nt

[HowHasItComeToThis]

8. I GUESS DEEP POCKETS WON

[gateley]

12. Will I ever learn? They always do. nt

[liberal_at_heart]

2. I knew we couldn't trust the House. I knew we coudn't trust any of them.

So I'm not surprised at all.

[smalll]

3. Just wait! Once the bill gets PASSED, they'll all start talking about the public option --

to improve it! This is just the first step! Just get this through, and Washington will be awash in legislative groundswell for the public option. No, even better than that -- for single payer! We'll have single-payer before the end of Obama's first term - they just need to pass this bill first! We'll be the envy of the Canadians, just you wait!



Yeah, that's the ticket!

[BzaDem]

6. Well it is true that a public option has a much better chance of passing after this bill is passed.

Why? Because a public option can be added on using reconciliation. It probably wouldn't happen in the 2010 Congress, but it could very well happen in a future Congress because we would only need 50 votes to do it.

[Edweird]

7. Yeah, just like they fixed NAFTA.....

[ThomCat]

10. Really?

With Republicans expected to gain seats?

With the media paying less attention as time goes on? So politicians are under LESS public pressure and feel less accountability?

With the insurance industry lobbyists walking around with MORE MONEY and MORE POWER because of their victories?

That's when our party will decide to suddenly fight harder than they've fought so far? That's when they will suddenly become unified for the first time? That's when they will finally decide to support public options for universal health care than they haven't been willing to touch so far?

That seems to me to be truly delusional thinking. If you look at the influences they will be under, they will be less likely to support real health care reform, and less like to be Able to support health care reform.

They had overwhelming public support for real health care reform, especially for implementation of some form of universal health care. If they could not do it in the past year with all of this public pressure and public scrutiny and public support, they are not going to do it later without the public pressure, scrutiny and support.

[murphyj87]

13. Canadians think...

that Americans have a third world health care system compared to what we have. The public option will in no way impress Canadians, only single payer would have any chance of that. We would put our health care up against anything that average Americans have. So long as you have insurance company bureaucrats between you and your physicians, you have inferior health care to what we have.

[DJ13]

4. A pictoral representation of the Democratic chances after final vote for HCR

[HowHasItComeToThis]

5. THE PROPAGANDISTS WILL DESTROY AMERICA

DAMN THEM

[FLAprogressive]

9. I'm sure we'll see some "nonsense" coming into this thread.

[Starry Messenger]

11. Was it doomy and gloomy of me that I totally expected this?

I probably made it happen by not thinking positively. I've heard here on DU that that can happen.

[HughMoran]

14. 1) as expected 2) the previous posts using the same headline aren't enough?

Oh, it's you. Never mind. :eyes: