"Leaders of four Democratic caucuses representing more than 120 members of Congress said Wednesday that they would vote against any health overhaul legislation that excludes a “robust” government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurers." (emphasis mine)
Why? Because the "public option" has been getting a beating as of late with repubs controlling the message. With crap like this:
"Republicans are out in force against a public option, seeing it as a precursor to full government takeover of health insurance. Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, takes to the Senate floor routinely to warn against government-supplied insurance."
72% of the population wants a public option. But it seems that even the dems don't hear the will of the people. How do we know? Because of crap like this from the dems:
"White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel met last night at the U.S. Capitol with Senate Democrats and told them Obama is 'open to alternatives' to a new government insurance program in order to get legislation overhauling the health-care system to his desk, said Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota.'"
Come hell or high water should the dems let the repubs push them around. Bipartisanship is assinine. However, it depends on your definition of bipartisan. From Dailykos
"Congressional Republicans are uniformly against a public option, but as Kilgore points out, about half of Republicans who don't live or work in DC support a public option...
- They [dems] can pursue Congressional bipartisanship, which will put them at odds with their own base and likely create political cover for Republicans who might otherwise have issues in their base, or
- They can pursue grassroots bipartisanship, which will put them on the side of an overwhelming majority of Americans and create a schism within the Republican-leaning electorate."
At the end of the day, I can't stand that Obama wants to deal with repubs when the congressional repubs will do anything to sabotage the public health plan.
