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Robert Gibbs Compares Public Option to Winning the Lottery

by Tommy Christopher | 4:39 pm, December 9th, 2009

» 2 comments

At today’s White House press briefing, Robe MEGA MILLIONS JACKPOT rt Gibbs was asked if the President’s support for the latest healthcare reform compromise, a gumbo of increased Medicare availability, access to the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program, and a trigger for the public option, constituted a “second-best” to the robust public option that the President has favored all along. His response was not what you would expect from an administration whose party holds both houses of Congress.

That would be an apt metaphor if the President and the Democrats in Congress owned all of the lottery tickets, but still somehow managed to leave winning as an open question. It would seem that Gibbs’ answer, then , is that this compromise is a poor cousin to the public option.

This is in rather stark contrast to what Gibbs told me about six weeks ago. I asked “Is the President willing to sign a bill that has something that he considers to be weaker than the robust public option that he feels is — strongly feels is the best way to provide a public option?”

Gibbs’ response was typically obtuse, but he did say “The President is not interested in signing anything for the sake of simply signing it.” Taken together with all of the White House’s statements about the importance of “providing choice and competition,” it’s disappointing to see them supporting a compromise that they clearly see as inferior.

Health Care Reform, Healthcare, Public Option, Robert Gibbs, Tommy Christopher, White House Public Option

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I support a government insurance plan, but I’m happy the public option didn’t make the cut. The big reason why universal health care is superior is because everyone pays in so that those who are healthy pay for those who aren’t.

Today the veterans have their own. Poor have Medicaid. Elders have Medicare. If the Public Option would’ve made the cut, then the other poor/uninsured would’ve been bunched up in to yet another plan, leaving even more healthy people to private insurance.

This is completely backwards!!! It’s like we’re socializing the people who need most care, but privatizing those who don’t. It’s freaking sick. All the healthy people, those who are supposed to support those who aren’t – are left to private insurance companies to just pick-pocket.
ChrisNH

Quote: “The President is not interested in signing anything for the sake of simply signing it.”

Oh, he most absolutely is. He’d steal Girl Scout cookies and tell everyone he baked them. That’s our Dear leader for you. He’ll sign ANYTHING called ‘Health Care’ that comes across his desk, no matter how watered down, just so he can fly his own ‘Mission Accomplished’ banner. This much we know for a fact.