Pelosi pledges again House will pass health care bill with public option

[kpete]

Source: CNN

Pelosi pledges again House will pass health care bill with public option
Posted: October 13th, 2009 04:07 PM ET

From CNN Congressional Producer Deirdre Walsh

WASHINGTON (CNN) – As the Senate Finance Committee passed its health care bill out of committee without a public option Tuesday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi stood on the other side of the Capitol insisting again that the House will pass a bill with a government-run insurance option.

"I am for the public option. That will be the House position, and that will be the position we will go to the conference to fight for," Pelosi said.

Pointing to a CBS poll from last week that found 62 percent of Americans favor a public option, Pelosi argued "the public is way ahead of elected officials in this."

The Speaker said she's aiming to pass a bill by Thanksgiving, but acknowledged others are projecting Christmas, and concluded a bill would pass "certainly this year."


Read more: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/10/13/pelosi-pledges-again-house-will-pass-health-care-bill-with-public-option/

[Captain Hilts]

1. Time for an MTV 'Celebrity Death Match' between Pelosi and Snowe. They seem to be the only women in

this debate. It's mostly men.

[No Elephants]

2. I would feel a lot better if peope who throw around the term "public option" would be

more specific. Are we talking about a public option only for the 5% of the population who are the riskiest and maybe also the least able to pay, or are we talking about a public option for everyone who wants to buy into it, with no holds barred competition against the private vultures?

[SandWalker1984]

4. We need a public option for everyone & Obama needs to fund it!

When President Obama went before Congress recently and made his speech regarding health care reform, he stated that he would not use government funds to help start a public option.

That's like saying you get a car, but not the gas to make it run.


I've reached the following conclusions regarding Congress & health care reform:

(1) The profits are too large, the pay scales too excessive for the health care industry to willingly allow meaningful reform that benefits us, the people.

(2) Many, if not most, members of Congress, along with Obama, are recipients of large donations from these health industry corporations. Donations they do not wish to see stopped or given to opponents in the next election cycle.

(3) Therefore, Congress is attempting to make the so called health care reform into token reform to try to appease us, the voters, while in reality they are planning the biggest giveaway (800 billion dollars or more, according to Jay Rockefeller) to that industry ever. They also plan to mandate we purchase private, overpriced and under delivering insurance from this industry to keep their donations rolling in.

(4) No meaningful regulation of the health care industry will take place as long as the industry is calling the shots with Congress. Most of the Baucus bill was written by lobbyists from WellPoint.

Unless some more Democrats suddenly get religion regarding true health care reform, it is better to defeat the Democrats and this sham legislation. It is better to defeat it now rather than hand the health care industry more customers, more money, more power so they can buy even more members of Congress.

NO legislation is better than bad legislation.

Better to end this battle now and fight again later than to surrender our well being to these mega, profit generating, out of control machines.


No wonder the Republicans have been sitting this one out - do the math, it's far more advantageous politically for them to let the Democrats hang themselves on this corporate giveaway of a bill.

[Altoid_Cyclist]

5. Thank you for the post.

I'm so tired of hearing that "any reform that gets passed is good because at least it's a start" and it will help Pres. Obama get re-elected.

If it doesn't help all Americans, it's not going to mean much except to the insurance companies that will be made even wealthier and to the politicians that are getting the bribes to kill real reform.

The front runner right now is the pathetic "??reform??" being pushed by the cabal of six headed by Wellpoi..er I mean Baucus. That bill would be about as useful when it comes to health care reform as showing up at a house fire with an eyedropper and a bucket of water.

Yes, I know that is a hyperbolic remark. I don't think that it's far off from the actual truth however.

We should be treating REAL HCR like a serious illness. The best chance to attain a complete recovery is to get the treatment right the first time because there might not be a second chance.

[dflprincess]

7. Obama has said he wants to be the last president who deals with this

If that's true, then he better get behind meaningful reform (i.e. Medicare for All) and not the scam they're trying to foist on us.

The problem is neither Obama nor Congress will see "any reform" as a start, they're going to see it as the end and expect us to be grateful when all they've done is protect the private insurers' profits.

[Altoid_Cyclist]

8. I hate to say this, but you're right.

They'll probably get away with it too. Let's face it, so many Americans have the attention span of a child that once they hear that reform has been passed, they won't even check to see what was in the reform package.

We've become as compliant as a pasture full of sheep.
Corporations act as the Shepherd and the politicians act as the border collie.

[Iowa]

10. Well said. I agree.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

3. Well, since it's in all 3 House bills that's not a daring prediction

[Sub Atomic]

6. OK Nancy, I'll try to believe what you say. Tell me though: when are you going to roll over again?

Like you did on the War on Brown People. And impeaching the Usurper. And on bringing our troops home from Iraq. And the Afghan waiver. And your claim that you knew nothing about torture at Guantanamo. Ad nauseum.

And not long ago, you backed away from your Public Option pledge. Now you're back on board?

Nancy, why don't you stop being such a lying, manipulative bitch and tell the American people where you really stand?

[gratuitous]

9. Much rather hear this than something else

The devil, as usual, lurks in the details. But strong statements like this from the Speaker are far superior to mealy-mouthed assertions such as "we're going to try" or "our hope is." If the Speaker needs support to keep from wavering, send her an e-mail. If you're not convinced, sent her an e-mail. If you're worried that she'll cave, send her an e-mail. Send your own representatives an e-mail, and quote some of these statements, particularly the one where the Speaker says, "the public is way ahead of elected officials on this." Remind your local representative that while insurance companies and big health can donate big chunks of campaign money, it's still the individual voters who will return them to office or turn them out.