President Barack Hussein Obama supports the public option in health insurance reform. He has ALWAYS supported it.
But you'd never know it from reading Daily Kos. You'd never know it from the Recommended List diaries that are here day in and day out (like the one up there now about Reid defying the White House). You'd never know it from "multiple sources".
But it's true. Barack Hussein Obama has not only supported the public option from Day 1, he has been PUSHING for it from Day 1.
Those are the facts. If you see some other reality, you have NOT been paying attention.
And I don't give a damn what your "multiple sources" say.
Let's go right to the source, Organizing for America's blog, the voice piece for the president to his grassroots supporters. Here's a little timeline that ends in early June when the president first announced his support for the public option as being an essential component of health insurance reform.
Serious health insurance reform efforts began on March 11, 2009 with an Op-Ed from White House Office for Health Reform director, Nancy-Ann DeParle. Regional health care meetings were held through the month of March and much of the rest of spring was spent getting the president's budget bill passed.
On April 8th, the president established the White House Office of Health Reform.
With the passage of the budget, Nancy-Ann DeParle began the first of her weekly updates on the status of the White House's health care reform efforts.
The budget passed earlier this week in Congress leaves room for dramatic health care reform, one of President Obama's top priorities.
May 11, 2009: the president releases his first major announcement on his health care plans. It included his three bedrock requirements for a bill he would sign:
- Reduce costs
- Guarantee choice
- Ensure all Americans have quality, affordable health care.
He set a hard goal for getting it done by the end of this year and concluded his announcement with this:
And that's why I was committed to health care reform as a presidential candidate; that's why health care reform is a key priority to this presidency; that's why I will not rest until the dream of health care reform is finally achieved in the United States of America. And that's why I'm thrilled to have such a broad, diverse group of individuals from all across the health care spectrum representing every constituency and every political predisposition who feel that same sense of urgency and are committing themselves to work diligently to bring down costs so we can achieve the reforms that we seek.
It got big-time coverage in the media:
By the middle of May, the anti-reform forces were already working against it in what David Plouffe called the "Swiftboating of Health Care Reform".
May 20, 2009, OFA kicks off its grassroots efforts with Health Care Organizing Kickoff meetings across the country to be held on June 6th. Later that week, he nominated Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court.
On June 2, 2009, the Office of Economic Advisors releases its report, "The Economic Case for Health Care Reform", which mentions the insurance exchange for the first time.
First mention of the public option was on June 2, 2009:
President Obama sent a public letter to Senator Ted Kennedy and Senator Max Baucus, following their meeting yesterday to discuss the ongoing work on health care legislation. In the letter, the President commended both Senators for their work on what he described as "one of the most urgent and important challenges confronting us as a Nation." He also re-asserted his support for a plan that expands access, cuts costs, and preserves choice, and he reiterated his belief that Americans should have the choice of a public health insurance option operating alongside private plans.
From then on, it was all health insurance reform, all the the time. And not once since then has the president backed away from his belief that the public option was a key way to help put competition into the marketplace. He said it most publicly in his speech to the nation and before the joint session in Congress.
These are the facts. "Multiple sources" may say whatever they wish but the president, his administration, and Organizing for America have been solidly behind the public option from Day 1 of the Health Reform effort.
Period.
I'm just sayin'...
UPDATE: There seems to be a LOT of equivocating in the comments. "I'm not saying he's not FOR it, just that he's not ENOUGH for it" or "he's not working hard enough to suit my tastes" or "he's not expending all his precious political capital on it". Big deal. You think you know everything that goes on behind the scenes on Capitol Hill? You don't. Think that the president isn't playing the political game in such a way that he defends himself from taking too much of the flak while preserving some of his political capital for the fights ahead on clean energy/climate change legislation, education reform and other progressive issues? Wake up and realize he HAS to save some of this capital if we're going to keep winning until 2016.
And, please, enough with the "Obamabots" crap and the "drinking the Kool-Aid" bullshit. Just because some of us haven't become so damn cynical that we automatically reject everything that comes out of the White House doesn't mean there aren't areas where we disagree with the president and his administration. For me, at least, there are several.
But his approach to health insurance reform ain't one of 'em. Obama has proven to be a master of political gamesmanship and timing time after time after time and I feel certain that view will be justified when all is said and done with health insurance reform.
And just because we won't get the exactly perfect bill that everyone wants (whatever that means) doesn't mean Obama failed. It just means he's not Superman. And us realists already know that.