{"id":995,"date":"2009-08-16T16:25:36","date_gmt":"2009-08-16T23:25:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.harmonicminer.com\/wordpress\/2009\/08\/16\/guess-who-wants-to-be-re-elected\/"},"modified":"2009-08-17T08:04:48","modified_gmt":"2009-08-17T15:04:48","slug":"guess-who-wants-to-be-re-elected","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.harmonicminer.com\/wordpress\/2009\/08\/16\/guess-who-wants-to-be-re-elected\/","title":{"rendered":"Guess who wants to be re-elected? UPDATE: Backing away from backing away"},"content":{"rendered":"

W.H. backs away from public option<\/a><\/p>\n

President Barack Obama and his top aides are signaling that they’re prepared to drop a government insurance option from a final health-reform deal if that’s what’s needed to strike a compromise on Obama’s top legislative priority.<\/p>\n

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Sunday that the public option was “not the essential element” of the overhaul. A day earlier, Obama downplayed the public option during a Colorado town hall meeting, saying it was “just one sliver” of the debate.<\/p>\n

He even chided Democratic supporters and Republican critics for becoming “so fixated on this that they forget everything else”, a dig at some liberals in his own party who have made the public option the main rallying cry of the health reform debate.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

UPDATE: And it seems the White House is NOW backing away from having backed away from the public option. This whole thing appears to be one of those “trial balloons” the White House sends up just to see how much outrage it generates among the leftier supporters of the public option, in an attempt to calibrate the political cost of jettisoning the public option. The president’s “druthers” are clear…. and he’s trying to find out now what he can sell, so he can claim that he did SOMETHING.<\/p>\n

Even being outspent five to one by some measures, the anti-nationalized-health-care public opinion is growing, both in numbers and commitment. Let’s hope it’s enough to stop this pig in a poke.<\/p>\n

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