Complete Fade by Obama on Public Option: Axelrod Says Support is Only 'Theoretical'

Read it and weep. Or call the White House and your Senators and Reps and raise hell. Obama is reportedly giving up on fighting for a public option before he's lifted a finger to actually fight for one to be included in health care reform -- or as his administration is now calling it, "health INSURANCE reform."

The Obama administration is sending out its strongest signs yet that it's willing to scrap a public option in order to move a health care bill forward. White House adviser David Axelrod tells ABC News that what remains of Obama's desire for a public option is largely theoretical. "The spirit that led him to support a public option is still very much at play here and so you know he wants competition. He wants choice." [emphasis mine]

And an anonymous White House official tells Politico "We have been saying all along that the most important part of this debate is not the public option, but rather ensuring choice and competition."

Remind me again why we all worked so hard to get this man elected. Oh yes, I seem to recall we perceived him to be a leader, not another status-quo defender afraid to rattle the opposition inside and outside the Dem Party. Change we can believe in, remember? When we devoted so much time, effort and money to help elect Obama and more Dems in Congress, who knew it was so they could betray us to appease the corporate greed machine and bought off Dems? Even worse, the President apparently will relish doing so:

On health care, Obama’s willingness to forgo the public option is sure to anger his party’s liberal base. But some administration officials welcome a showdown with liberal lawmakers if they argue they would rather have no health care law than an incremental one. The confrontation would allow Obama to show he is willing to stare down his own party to get things done. [emphasis mine]

“We have been saying all along that the most important part of this debate is not the public option, but rather ensuring choice and competition,” an aide said. “There are lots of different ways to get there.”

As "Rich in NJ," a commenter on the first article wrote:

There is a reason that Obama's approval ratings are dropping. It's the discontent of the progressives who were the driving force behind his electoral victories, both in the primaries and the general election.

To make matters worse, a majority of the public supports a public option. This is not the kind of change many people voted for.

I wonder who Obama and other Dems who are dismissive of the Dem base think will be working and voting for them in 2010 and 2012? Maybe they can tap into all those "centrists" to pound the pavement and staff the phonebanks. I guess they'll be getting enough contributions from the worst of the health care industry to tide them over in the campaign funding department as long as they lie down to the demands of insurance lobbyists.

The only ray of hope for a public option I see today is in this article on TPM reporting that it may be necessary to include a robust public option in the Senate bill if reconciliation is used to bypass a predicted GOP filibuster:

"A very robust public option that scores significant savings would presumably be easy to justify doing through reconciliation," says a Senate Democratic aide. "But it is still being studied whether other, more moderate versions of a public option could pass parliamentary muster."

According to Martin Paone, a legislative expert who's helping Democrats map out strategy, a more robust public option--one that sets low prices, and provides cheap, subsidized insurance to low- and middle-class consumers--would have an easier time surviving the procedural demands of the so-called reconciliation process. However, he cautions that the cost of subsidies "will have to be offset and if [the health care plan] loses money beyond 2014...it will have to be sunsetted."

Photo taken by M.E. Broderick at President Obama's appearance in Rio Rancho NM this past May.