That's one of the things I'm wondering about in the days leading to the president's speech to Congress on the need to pass meaningful healthcare reform on Sept. 9.
O.K., the legislation that passes Congress will be less than perfect and it's not going to include lots of things I would like to see in any bill, but what I would like to see is real action not only to address the 47 million who don't have health insurance, but millions more who are underinsured and many others who have been denied coverage because of either pre-existing conditions or because they became ill.
The New York Times detailed what one might conclude a series of "trial balloons" designed to test reaction to some possibilities.
Here's part of the Times report:
Administration officials said Wednesday that Mr. Obama would be more specific than he has been to date about what he wants included in the plan. Doing so amounts to an acknowledgment that the president’s prior tactic of laying out broad principles and leaving Congress to fill in the details was no longer working and that Mr. Obama needed to become more personally involved in shaping the outcome.
But the officials said Mr. Obama was unlikely to unveil a detailed legislative plan of his own. And they insisted that Mr. Obama had not given up on the provision that has attracted the most fire from the right, a proposal for a government-run competitor to private insurers, although many Democrats say the proposal may eventually be jettisoned.
So what is it about the public option that Republicans and insurance companies are afraid of. I'm fed up to here about the crying that Republican politicians like my area's shameful Taliban congressman, Pete Sessions (TX-32), about how private insurers won't be able to compete against a public option and that a public option will lead to a government takeover of healthcare.
Having a government-run public option sure hasn't led to a government monopoly in the package delivery business. If you don't believe me, just ask FedEx and UPS, two private companies who continually get handsome chunks of the package delivery business even with a public option-- the U.S. Postal Service-- available.
Why isn't the media pointing this out continually in their assessments of the arguments for and against the public option? And why is the media so obsessed with citing polls pointing to erosions in President Obama's popularity that they are completely leaving out polls pointing toward overwhelming support of the public option?
It seems that the media is asleep at the wheel when it comes to providing accurate coverage of the public option and the American people's overwhelming support for it. And with President Obama's talk on Sept. 9 drawing closer, it is very appropriate for the American people to hold the president's feet (as well as the feet of those in Congress) on the fire and force them to pass real healthcare reform with a real public option.
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