Sam Stein over at the Huffington Post has an update on his earlier story about Daschle/Dole/Hamilton scuttling of the public option.
Text after the jump...
A spokesman for the former majority leader called the Huffington Post to insist that Daschle is "still committed to the public plan" and was not urging Obama to drop it from his proposal.
"He was saying that we shouldn't let any issue derail what would be health care reform," said Eileen McMenamin, Director of Communications at the Bipartisan Policy Center. "He definitely did not say there should be no public plan."
Daschle, said McMenamin, did believe that a public plan could be administered by the states. And his chief concern with Obama'a approach was not the policy basis but the politics of getting it through Congress.
Did someone just get an earful for undercutting the president? Or maybe the morning outrage over selling out health reform to placate the AMA was jamming the former senator's phone lines.
At any rate, this development seemed like a worthwhile update to Hunter's diary on the public option today.
My view: it's hard to view Daschle's original statement to ABC News as anything but a surrender on the public option plan:
"While I feel very strongly that consumers should have the choice of a national, Medicare-like plan, my colleagues do not. . . But we were concerned that the ongoing health reform debate is beginning to show signs of fracture on the public plan issue, so in order to advance the process of developing bipartisan legislation and to move it forward, it's time to find consensus here," Daschle said.
But the fact that he felt compelled to contradict himself within the span of a day may indicate there's at least a public incentive to keep fighting for the public option. And who knows? Maybe there's some dissent in the ranks.
Keep up the pressure, folks!
UPDATE: Of course, I should've have also referred people to nyceve's diary on the reclist.
UPDATE II: Oh, and definitely hear lizard people's call to action.