Robert Gibbs Compares Public Option to Winning the Lottery

At today’s White House press briefing, Robert 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.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!