Yesterday, while this blog took some time off, healthcare’s political power players took to the Sunday talk shows. And while they did not explicitly say so, Obama’s push for a public option appears to be turning into something less demonstrative. Top Obama aides are framing his push for a public option provision as an insistence now. This all sounds plausible to some degree — except, he has been doing that all along, hasn’t he?

President Obama isn’t demanding that health care legislation include a government-run insurance option even though he believes it would best meet his reform goals, White House advisers said yesterday.

The White House and lawmakers are trying to blend five House and Senate committee versions of health care legislation into a bill that will pass both houses, where near unanimous GOP opposition was expected.

Senior adviser Valerie Jarrett said Obama believes the public plan is still the “best possible choice,’’ but she said he’s not demanding it.

White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, who is deeply involved with Democrats in trying to merge the various committee proposals, also appeared to set aside the public option.

“It’s not the defining piece of health care. It’s whether we achieve both cost control, coverage, as well as the choice,’’ Emanuel said…

Where’s the choice without a public option? This was the platform upon which Obama’s #1 domestic priority was placed. One possible interpretation for Obama’s newfound reticence: a “laying low” strategy. Realizing the House’s version of the bill includes a public option provision and that the Senate’s version is anything but, he could be waiting for subsequent committee placement of it back into the bill if the Senate’s final version passes without the provision; that would require sixty Republican votes.

Democrats who wish to have any semblance of a political future in 2010 should be clamoring for a public option. If CBO estimates are to be believed^[1], when voters realize that they will have to wait a few years for the Max Baucus Senate-backed law to be implemented and show any potential savings for care delivery in general, there could be a backlash for healthcare consumers led to believe that public option alternatives in healthcare marketplace competition would be immediate and healthy (insurance co-ops, for example). | LINK

1. The Congressional Budget Office finds that the country would get the most savings on health-care costs from a public option tied to Medicare rates. This version, found in two of the House bills, would save $110 billion over 10 years. [↩]

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