EP-SLC, UT-President Obama today declared that a public health care emergency trumps political considerations when it comes to the implementation of the "public option."
"The 180 million Americans who currently have employer-based health insurance can keep their insurance! However, I am also very concerned about the 120 million Americans who do not have employer-based insurance, and especially the 50 million who have no insurance!"
"I am concerned about the hundreds of thousands of Americans who have been laid off in the last year, who have lost their health insurance."
"I am concerned about the millions of small, innovative businesses that cannot provide health insurance to productive employees. Such incredibly productive employees must be allowed to move to those employers where they can make a real difference, not the one that provides a semblance of health insurance coverage."
"These concerns, in my view, trump any concern for helping institutions that have proven their lack of concern for their fellow Americans. I find myself lacking concern about an industry trusted by less than 10% of Americans."
"And I find myself unable to proffer any kind of support to those in the opposition party that side with such an industry, but more importantly to any within my own party, a party that has made great gains on a populist agenda over the last few years, that choose to side with an industry that actively works to make America less healthy!"
"Instead of further reliance on an industry which has proven its incompetence, its lack of trustworthiness, and its pursuit of profits over the health of its customers I believe strongly that we must take bold steps forward towards a model proven to work in the rest of the industrialized world."
Obama expressed support for independent polls in states of Democrats fighting a public option to determine actual support of such positions.