So, O is in the bag with Insurance or he wants to get re-elected? WHY?

[Laura PourMeADrink]

Many are saying O doesn't want a public option - or Dems in congress would be fighting harder.

Why on earth would he not. It saves money - takes the profit out of the mix

I can only think of four reasons:

1. He has a better handle on the votes than anyone in congress and knows it wouldn't pass.
2. He is in the bag with the big insurance and has secretly made promises to them? But, what kind of promises?
3. He is afraid that just the words 'public option' will translate to Repuke attack ads in Nov - using the words 'government giveaway'
4. Ditto #3, but for him in 2012?

For everyone who says he doesn't want a PO - which reason is it/

[cmd]

1. The nagging little public option problem

Please understand that I am 100% for a public option. The problem I'm talking about is the huge hit that retirement plans would take if insurance companies went out of business.
I'm covered under state retirement system and get NO Social Security. I am retired and get an adequate monthly check of about two thousand dollars. I know my retirement system is
heavily invested in insurance. I imagine that it would take heavy financial losses, perhaps causing a collapse. That being said, I still want a public option. It's the right thing to do.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

3. Interesting. And, if that's his rationale, then it's not like he can

come out and actually say that. Sounds like there would have to be an orchestrated effort to get the biggest retirement plans out there to redirect their investments. We have created a monster

[bornskeptic]

5. The insurance companies will be OK.

Even if we went to a single-payer system it would be administered by private companies, as Medicare is. There is no way the government could afford to add the hundreds of thousands of employees that would be needed to administer such a system. It would be much cheaper to contract the job out.In addition the insurance companies would still be making money selling supplemental policies as they do now with Medicare Advantage plans and Medigap policies.

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[cmd]

12. I should not have said go out of business

However, the impact on the market could be significant. And I still want a public option. It's not about me, it's the right thing to do.

[Jennicut]

2. The answer is......the votes are not there. Why anyone refuses to believe this I don't know.

There could be but one Senator that could hold it all up. This is the Senate we are talking about. The only question is, who are the holdouts? If they won't sign the public option letter or claim to have no comment, they don't want us to know. So it is a guessing game.

[nevergiveup]

7. We all know the votes are not there in the Senate

but if this is the real reason there won't be a PO then we won't be able to tie it totally to Obama and we can't have that. There was never going to be a PO with this Senate regardless of what Obama did. Democrats in the Senate are cowards and cowards have an aversion to risk.

[NorthCarolina]

4. Obama is a self declared "New Dem". That is the term conservative DLC members prefer to go by now

Conservatives do not like anything that even remotely resembles what would be called an "entitlement" or "welfare", unless that entitlement or welfare goes to benefit corporate interests. Congress critters are fully aware of the polling on the popularity of single payer or a public option, and so there is only one logical reason that there is none. Quite simply, neither Obama nor the DLC wants to see another entitlement program created. In fact, in retrospect I am quite sure that the issue of health care reform was undertaken by Obama for the purpose of enacting legislation that permanently ties health care in the US to the private sector, and locking out any chance of a move to socialized medicine for decades. These politicians know that their claim of a center-right nation, regurgitated ad nauseum for them by the media, is a load of BS, and that younger generations will continue to move this country ever leftward. The time for these corporatists to act was now, rather than later, to tie the US to a system of private health insurance as a means of preventing any shift to a public system that would otherwise have been inevitable.

[bornskeptic]

6. The public option as proposed, is not an entitlement

program in any sense. It would be operated independently and be self-supporting, like the Postal Service. On the other hand the subsidies which are included in both bills and the president's plan do constitute an entitlement program, so your claim that Obama opposes the public option because the DLC opposes entitlements makes no sense. Clearly both Obama and the DLC support the entitlement program included in the bill.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

15. i was merely restating what i read here over and over that it was O

that didn't want SP. I am just trying to make sense of it all

[depakid]

8. You left one out- conflict and risk aversion

[ibegurpard]

13. I don't think so

I really think it's post #4 above.

[Old Codger]

9. Really

whether the votes are there or not is inconsequential, the real reason they will not put it up for vote is to keep the nay voters from having to face their constituents with the fact that they were against what the majority of the voters want. It needs to come up and if defeated we would at least know who did it, the way it is going is hiding the real truth.

[Dr.Phool]

10. I'll take door #2.

[Hansel]

14. O? nt

[Laura PourMeADrink]

16. Obama - our shining star

[dionysus]

17. it's just easier for people to declare he's trying to destroy all that's

good in the country and leave it at that.

[goclark]

18. Ditto