OFA: Public Option Is 'One Small Part' Of Health Care Reform

They really have a death wish, don't they?

There is no other alternative to accomplish the president's stated goal, unless they allow Medicare for All--which they won't, because it makes too much sense and their true constituency(for-profit insurers) doesn't want it.

Pass a bill with an individual mandate and without the public option, and the Dems deserve to lose their majority and Obama deserves to be a one-term president. I know I won't be voting, because they will have proven once and for all that it doesn't make a damn bit of difference.
This is it. Do or die.

Oh, come on. This is such Huffington Post crap. Why didn't you mention another "talking point"?:

"President Obama believes the final bill to come to his desk should have a public option".

That's what he said from the beginning. Exactly that.

i too am sick and tired, and tired and sick of this "one small part" argument. as i understand it, health care reform is two fold: one to give strong consumer protections from the immoral practices of the health care industry; and two, to bring down cost which is an albatross around the neck of both american business and americans personally.

no one, has been able to answer, if the public option is only a "small part," how real cost savings, and not another bailout of taxpayer dollars to the already bloated health insurance industry, this will be achieved?

americans, regardless of how the gop wants to obfuscate it, have said we want the choice of a public option, the cbo has said it will result in genuine savings; and still the spineless democrats are afraid to do what is right for fear they will endanger their campaign coffers.

what the dems, and those like rahm refuse to believe, if they pass anything other than strong regulation and price controls on the health care industry; the backlash will come from the american voter!

I've seen this a few sites highlight these talking points.

A couple of points:

1) Obama has stated repeatedly that the public option is not the entirety of reform. He has also noted previously that it's a small part of reform efforts. He said in August that the public option is "not the entirety of health care reform. This is just one sliver of it, one aspect of it." So, I fail to see why people are breathless about this talking point; it's been said before -- months ago. Additionally, given that only about 5% of people without insurance will sign up for the public option, characterizing it as a "small part" of reform isn't exactly without merit. [There's also an argument to made that removing focus from the PO issue would actually smooth the road for its passage.]

2) The final talking point on this same list states, "President Obama believes the final bill to come to his desk should have a public option." Despite the breathless mulling of minutiae and incessant semantic parsing of many who want to suggest otherwise, the WH hasn't given up on the public option.

So, again, I'm left wondering why people are breathless about this.

I'm also wondering why news organizations are plucking one talking point out of several, and presenting it as something other than what it really is. It all seems a bit disingenuous.

"It's dead, Jim."

We've know that for a long time. It's a catch-22 that it's become popular again. It's made killing it off a little tougher. But it's also made watching the whole process of it getting killed off much tougher. Whatever slack one was cutting the Obama & Rahm Admin for continuing Bush-Cheney things we don't like is starting to vannish watching this one. Climate Control is next and that one has already been gamed before it even got to the Senate, and a watered down bill will get even worse passing through those committees and the floor.

One can't say "Worse Than Bush" because they aren't. But it's wildly more disappointing that the Bush Admin because we knew what a bunch of jackasses and hacks they were going in.

John