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Obama won't insist on 'public option'
by Mark Silva and Christi Parsons
With a nationally televised prime-time address to Congress tonight, President Barack Obama hopes to clarify and promotebut not insist upona "public option'' in the health-insurance overhaul that he is seeking as part of a plan that he intends "to get done this year.''
"There are some principles that, if they are not embodied in the bill, I will not sign it,'' Obama said in an interview aired by ABC News' Good Morning America today.
Yet the president and aides today have stopped short of drawing a line in the sand for the so-called public option, offering government-run health insurance to those who cannot find coverage privately.
The president most likely will not demand the public option, but will make an argument for it during tonight's address to Congress and the public, according to a senior administration official.
"This is not a national debate about whether we have a public option," the senior administration official said, requesting anonymity in advance of the president's speech. "It is whether we bring choice and competition" to the marketplace.
Obama, asked if the must-have elements of his plan include that public option, spoke instead of other requirements in the interview aired this morning: "I will give you an exampleif it's adding one dime to the deficit, if it's not fully paid for,'' then he will not sign the legislation.
The president plans tonight to set the same basic requirements that he has mentioned often in a series of "town-hall'' styled sessions over the summer: A health-care plan that is fully financed, without adding to the federal deficit, one that improves the insurance coverage that Americans already have and one offering coverage to those lacking it.
For the president, the challenge during a rare address to a joint session of Congress will be focusing a divided Congress and a doubtful American public on what he expects to accomplish on health care by the end of the year. The president will address the House and Senate at 8 pm EDT, with polls showing that most Americans plan to tune in.
The additional problem for the president is convincing a resistant audience of skeptics about the need for his plans, while assuring ranks of supportive Democrats that he is heeding their concerns as well. The public option, in particular, has become a point of contention for some of the Democrats whom the president will count on to win a plan in the Senate, and House Democratic leaders have deemed it essential.
"It's my belief that a public option cannot pass the Senate,'' Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) told reporters today.
With Baucus suggesting today that Democrats are prepared to advance a bill in the Senate with or without Republican support, GOP leaders are complaining that the public option is not the only problem.
"There's been a lot of focus on the government option in the plan that a lot of Democrats are supporting,'' House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said today. " But let's understand that it's not the only bitter pill in their plan. ''
He pointed to a requirement that employers provide insurance plans for workers or face a tax for failing to offer that. "At a time when we are trying to create jobs this will make it more difficult to create jobs, and, as a matter of fact, probably cost our economy jobs,'' Boehner said.
White House aides are defending the president's strategy of pressing for principles over details in the health-care debate. The senior aide says this has "flushed out a lot of ideas." Now Obama's plan is to take those ideas, "bring the strands together" and suggest a way forward.
"The president will bring clarity," the senior administration official said, by outlining health insurance reforms that will stabilize coverage for those who have insurance, make it affordable for those who don't and bring the overall cost of health care down.
These are principles that the president has emphasized time and again, but aides said today that Obama would narrow down the range of options and make a case for a combination he thinks will work.
Obama will have a broad audience tonight. Most Americans surveyed56 percentplan to watch Obama's prime-time speech to lawmakers, the Pew Research Center has found. However, more Democrats72 percent -- plan to watch than Republicans41 percent.
And two-thirds of those surveyed67 percent -- say that, after months of debate, the health care debate remains difficult to understand. The survey of 1,005 adults was conducted Sept. 3-6.
"The president, I think, has a few main goals tonight,'' said Robert Gibbs, the White House Press Secretary
"For those that are fortunate to have insurance,'' he said, the president plans "to demonstrate for them that his plan will bring them security and stability. For those that don't have health insurance, that we'll provide an affordable way for them to get accessible insurance...
'"It's a good opportunity to once again talk directly to the American people about how important health care reform is and why we have to get it done this year,'' Gibbs told reporters.
The president said in a Labor Day address in Ohio that he still wants a public option as part of his health-care insurance overhaul, and the White House says the president will address that issue tonightthough the option does not represent "the totality'' of his plan.
"The president will talk tonight about the public option and about the necessity for choice and competition,'' Gibbs said.
The president has personally worked on the speech that he will deliver, returning from a Labor Day weekend stay at Camp David with handwritten notes for his speechwriters. And he was working on a draft with speechwriters as recently as this morning, according to Gibbs.
"I have given some broad principles and parameters,'' Obama said on Good Morning America. "It must not increase the deficit, it must improve coverage for those who have it and offer it to those without out.''
While hoping to clarify his own goals, the president allowed that he has "probably left too much ambiguity out there, which allowed opponents to come in and fill up the air waves with too much nonsense.''
That includes a summer-long debate over so-called "death panels'' handing government officials say over end-of-life issues for the elderly, or a broad government "takeover of health care,'' as well as the notion that illegal immigrants will be covered under the health-care bill.
Obama, insisting that bills under debate contain none of that, said he hopes to "dispel some of the myths and frankly silliness'' out there.
In hewing to his basic principles, the Democratic president maintained that he remains receptive to ideas from both parties.
"I am open to new ideas,'' Obama said. "We are not being rigid and ideological about this thing, but we do intend to get this done this year...
"I have tried to maintain a tone, and my White House has tried to maintain a tone, that is open to all-comers,'' the president said. "In spite of all this, there is this unyielding partisanship, and I think in some ways it has gotten worse.''
Baucus, however, indicated today that he is prepared to advance a bill in his committee this month without the help of any Republicans.
Reasonable voices have been "shouted down'' in the process, the president said, with his appearance before Congress arriving at the end of a summer of tumultuous congressional town halls.
"I hope that the Republican Party can rediscover that voice,'' Obama said. "I think they'll find they have a partner in the White House on a whole lot of issues.''
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