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The administration and Organizing for Obama are clearly aware that many of the strongest supporters of healthcare reform are reluctant to support the President's current plan because it lacks a public option. In the OFA conference call on finishing health care reform the following question was asked:
Q: I was just wondering if we come across folks who are still advocating for the public option, should we still be supportive of that or would that mess things up?
Mitch: The President laid out his plan and the public option is not in that and I know a lot of people - not only on the phone here - but a lot of the folks that you talk to feel very strongly about the public option, but this is what I would say... This is our best shot at getting health insurance reform; comprehensive health insurance reform passed and while its not going to be exactly what everyone wants. This bill - the President's plan - accomplishes 90% of what I think all of us agree is a step in the right direction. So I would just talk about what is at stake. Sitting on the side lines based off of the public option - at this point is going to be absolutely detrimental to our efforts as we move forward. We have a lot of conversations about that and just say what's at stake - is that the sole reason why you support health insurance reform? You know, pose that question to folks. If we don't get this done now, literally it will be a decade before anyone brings this back up again and our country can't afford that - businesses, families, individuals and our government - local, state and federal - can't afford to put this problem off for another decade so that is what I would say to folks. I know it isn't a perfect answer. I know a lot of people feel extremely strong about that issues, but that's the best answer I can give you all tonight.
(thanks to Chris Bowers for prosting this)
This is a gross misunderstanding of why public option supporters oppose the current bill. Our response is not the selfish, simple-minded "oh, we didn't get our pet project in the bill, so we're against it" mentality that OFA leadership has tried to present it as. We are, by and large, opposed to any bill that would force the uninsured (such as myself) to buy policies from the very same private insurance companies Obama and the Democratic leadership have painted as the corrupt, well-monied defenders of a broken status quo.
We cannot, and will not support a bill that rewards these companies for denying coverage, for putting profit over people's lives, for distorting the democratic process through lobbying money, by handing them 50 million new customers, forced by government to buy their overpriced products. We are not just sitting on the sidelines, we are fundamentally opposed to this type of a bill.
We have said from the very beginning, that if there is to be an individual mandate to buy insurance we must have some option outside of the existing private, for profit companies. Whether a new public agency, a non-profit, or a Medicare buy-in (this is what most progressives would actually prefer if voluntarily open to all ages), any or all would be fine, just not WellPoint (whose former CEO was the Baucus staffer that largely wrote the Senate bill that Obama has based his proposal around). We will not support a bill that was written by insurance company CEOs and lobbyists.
This is not a qualm over a small detail; it is a huge rift over the fundamental direction of healthcare reform and government in general. Do we truly change and move this country in a new direction, by once again using government to provide for the general welfare of the people, as the Constitution gives Congress the authority and responsibility to do (Section 8, Article I), or do we continue with more of the same: big government bailing out big business at the expense of our general welfare?
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