So says Nancy-Ann DeParle in an interview with Bloomberg:
Aug. 7 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama may accept nonprofit health-insurance cooperatives in place of a new government-run plan as long as consumers are guaranteed more choice and competition in buying insurance, a top aide said.
“We would be interested in that” if those conditions are met, Nancy-Ann DeParle, director of the White House Office of Health Reform, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s “Conversations with Judy Woodruff” airing today.
DeParle said she expected Congress to pass health-care legislation on a bipartisan vote “around Thanksgiving.”
...
In the Bloomberg TV interview, DeParle said a public plan would “level” the playing field by providing consumers “another choice” in “something like 88 percent of markets in this country right now” that are served by only one or two insurance companies.
The public plan would also lower costs, she said.
Nonetheless, DeParle said the president may be interested in cooperatives -- if they are designed to achieve his objectives.
Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, reinforced that view during his briefing yesterday when asked if Obama would sign a bill that didn’t include a public plan.
“The president is open to a bill that increases choice and competition,” he said.
This is essentially a reaffirmation of what President Obama told me on July 20, in the blogger conference he held with DeParle and Axelrod:
The conversation turned to the public option, with the President reiterating that a robust public option participating in the insurance exchange would be the best competition for people like the self-employed and small business owners and employees. With the topic the public option, and the fact that the Senate Finance committee is still considering the coop model as an alternative, I asked whether there was a coop model that would be an acceptable substitute to his vision of a robust public plan. He gave the well-informed, wonky answer I'd been hoping for. His advisers have been looking at the details the coop approach, and have yet to find a model that answers the problems that co-ops have in getting off the ground and growing quickly enough to compete at the level that will be necessary in a public option. His team is looking for the evidence that exists to show that a co-op could provide that competition, and if they can find it, it might be an option. He then reiterated his commitment to having a robust public option.
It's pretty damned hard to imagine any kind of co-op that could compete with the private insurers on a scale that could match a government plan, which is what President Obama has consistently insisted upon in any plan in the bill, including in this appearance in Virginia last week in which he insisted that Americans "deserve a public option."
Bloomberg also helpfully reminds us that the public option is "contentious" and that "Most Republicans and some Democrats oppose the creation of a so-called public option." Because most Republicans and a few Democrats in Congress oppose a public option. However, a solid majority of Democrats in Congress support the public option, and an even greater percentage of the American population supports a public option. To reiterate:
Most recent polls show that the majority of Americans support a public option. Recent polling from Washington Post/ABC News, Time, and McClatchy all show more than 50 percent support for a public option; two Quinnipiac polls and a New York Times/CBS News poll show more than 60 percent support; and an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows 46 percent support for a public option:
Quinnipiac: 62 percent support "public option."...
Washington Post/ABC News: 54 percent support a "government-run plan." ...
Time: 56 percent favor a "government-sponsored" option....
NY Times/CBS News: 66 percent favor a "government administered" plan....
McClatchy: 52 percent say "it is necessary to create a public health insurance plan." ...
NBC News/Wall Street Journal: 46 percent favor a plan "administered by the federal government." ...
The President keeps saying that this reform is about choice--that if you choose to keep your current plan, you can, but you will also have the choice of something better. That something better has been a robust public option. That's what all three committee in the House fought for, it's what the Senate HELP Committee fought for, and it's what all the mobilized activists in the progressive movement have fought for. Max Baucus and Kent Conrad and the Republicans are not the majority and they're not the "center" in this debate.
President Obama needs to hold firm to his criteria for a public option--that it be strong enough to compete with private insurers, that it provide Americans with a real choice, and that it keeps the insurance companies honest. Untested, unproven, unregulated co-ops are unlikely to provide that competition, and sure as hell aren't what we've all been fighting for for all these months.