Feingold: Obama Responsible For Loss Of Public Option

[pissedoff01]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/20/feingold-obama-responsibl_n_398658.html

Feingold: Obama Responsible For Loss Of Public Option
Sam Stein

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.) formally announced on Sunday that he would support the Senate's final version of health care reform. But in doing so he cast blame for the loss of a public option for insurance coverage partially on the president's shoulders and urged House and Senate negotiators to re-insert the government-run plan back into the legislation during conference committee.

From the Wisconsin Democrat's press office came the following statement:

I've been fighting all year for a strong public option to compete with the insurance industry and bring health care spending down. I continued that fight during recent negotiations, and I refused to sign onto a deal to drop the public option from the Senate bill. Unfortunately, the lack of support from the administration made keeping the public option in the bill an uphill struggle. Removing the public option from the Senate bill is the wrong move, and eliminates $25 billion in savings. I will be urging members of the House and Senate who draft the final bill to make sure this essential provision is included.

But while the loss of the public option is a bitter pill to swallow, on balance, the bill still delivers meaningful reform, and the cost of inaction is simply too high. This bill significantly expands coverage and helps protect Wisconsinites from high costs and insurance company abuses, such as denying or restricting coverage based on pre-existing conditions. The bill also improves a flawed Medicare formula that denies Wisconsin fair reimbursement rates, encourages the kind of low-cost, high-value care practiced in our state, increases access to home and community-based long-term care, and reduces federal budget deficits by $132 billion over the next decade.

One of the prominent progressives in Congress, Feingold's statement gives voice to the frustration that many Democrats have felt when watching the health care debate unfold. The Obama White House, quite consciously, refused to draw a line around the public plan even as Senate Democrats practically begged for them to do so.

The decision may have been strategically astute -- positioning the president appropriately for when the public option was to meet its natural sacrifice. But it also opens the president to criticism like Feingold's and it feeds the meme of Obama's timidity.

[stray cat]

1. I sure agree with Feingold on the goal of getting it back in

[TheWraith]

2. Right, because the filibuster has NOTHING to do with it.

:eyes:

[Captain Hilts]

3. Make them vote against a public option. Stand up and be counted. nt

[mod mom]

4. If only there were more like Russ Feingold in the senate!

[still_one]

5. I am not trying to be cynical, but this is all part of the Kabuki dance, in other words

providing cover for those who have been taking a principled stand who now are voting for the bill

In addition, I believe, that part of the plan is to amend the bill AFTER it becomes law, and during that process the public option will be added back in

Maybe I am wrong, but I don't think so

Another general comment/question about Russ's statement, how does he think the public option could have gotten through the Senate when there were enough blue dogs who said they would kill the bill if it had a public option? Were they bluffing? I don't know

[stray cat]

6. I suspect Russ is disappointed that Obama did not push the public option harder

and lead more than letting the senate play with it. I don't know if the outcome would have been different or not. I didn't like the stimulus bill and thing Obama had a better plan with less pork than the senate ended up with.

[still_one]

11. It sure appears Obama didn't try very hard /nt

[OHdem10]

8. It is believed by some that if Obama had insisted on PO from the

beginning, it would have been much more difficult for the
Blue Dogs to undercut the President.

The biggest mistake was Obama permitting the Congress to
work their will rather than work his will.

Many ask how GWB was able to get things through. He
went to Cong. Republicans told them what he would like
and what he must have. They knew they had to pass his
must haves. The Republicans would not cross him and DeLay
and Crist.

Obama gave the Democrats on the Hill too much leeway
and they defied him.

[still_one]

13. Interesting, then naivete /nt

[dflprincess]

12. They were going to fix NAFTA and NCLB after they became law too

Still waiting.

I wouldn't hold my breath on anything getting changed in this scam - unless there's something the insurance compmanies or phara decide they don't like.

[xchrom]

7. Indeed. Nt

[Pirate Smile]

9. Joe Lieberman really appreciates Feingold shifting the blame from him.

Draw a line in the sand like Clinton and let it go down in flames when there are not 60 votes for it.

Everyone can bitch about how Barack Obama did this when no other President has been able to.

As usual, people tell Obama what they've been telling him forever "You're.Doing.It.Wrong!!!"

He's always doing stuff wrong and the other politicians, pundits and villagers always tell him that he should have done it THIS way, not THAT way. Geez.

Who does he think he is? The first African American to get elected President with a middle name Hussein and a last name rhyming with our biggest enemy - everybody can do that.

Now, he is going to be the President who passes national health care reform which nobody has been able to do since FDR and, of course, he'll do it but the politicians and CW pundits along with the crowd in the stands will continue to say "You're.Doing.It.Wrong!!!"

[mzmolly]

10. I wonder if they just wanted to get the bill out of the senate?

I hope, like Feingold that the public option will be back in the bill when it it signed by the President.