From Sam Stein on HuffPo:In an effort that seemed designed to appease concerned progressive advocates, President Barack Obama issued a clarifying statement about the administration's commitment to a "public option" for health insurance while traveling in Russia on Tuesday.
"I am pleased by the progress we're making on health care reform and still believe, as I've said before, that one of the best ways to bring down costs, provide more choices, and assure quality is a public option that will force the insurance companies to compete and keep them honest," read the statement. "I look forward to a final product that achieves these very important goals."
The vague reassurance came hours after Obama's own chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel suggested that the White House would be comfortable with legislation that had a public plan "triggered" in only by worsening economic conditions.
"The goal is to have a means and a mechanism to keep the private insurers honest," Emanuel told the Wall Street Journal. "The goal is non-negotiable; the path is" negotiable.
It was, White House aides insist, far from a commitment to a trigger option. But a source close to the administration, who has been in contact with the White House on health care matters, said that Emanuel has been "floating" the trigger compromise since January.
"Rahm's problem with this is he is on the more conservative end of the Democratic Party and he is a very political guy," the source added. "He is working for a way out without a bloody fight. The problem is he doesn't mind taking that fight to the left. And what I worry could happen is the left will just quit."
And what I worry could happen is that the soft, squishy center of the Democratic Party will sell real reformers out.
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