On Monday’s World News, ABC’s Charles Gibson channeled the worry of liberal activists over the Obama administration’s seeming retreat on government-run health insurance, the so-called “public option.” Gibson fretted about Obama to White House correspondent Jake Tapper: “Will he go to the mat for a public option?” Gibson exposed how one-sided his universe of experts is: “We talked to several health care experts today, and they all said if you take out the public option in terms of insurance, there's going to be no restraints on the cost of insurance.”
Conservative health care experts see empowering individuals, not government or insurance company bureaucrats, as the key to creating a more sensible health care marketplace.
MRC’s Brad Wilmouth caught Gibson’s exchange with Tapper, which followed Tapper’s piece on how the White House backpedaling was upsetting liberals:
JAKE TAPPER: The suggestion that the White House is willing to drop the public plan has sparked a firestorm of criticism from liberal Democrats.
REP. ANTHONY WEINER (D-NY): If the President thinks we're going to get the votes without public option, he's got another thing coming. That won't pass the House.
TAPPER: New York Congressman Anthony Weiner said today the President could lose 100 Democratic votes in the House over this.
WEINER: Some of us who have gotten roughed pretty good at town hall meetings and stuck in there because we believe in this now kind of feel like we have a tire track on our chest where the bus that rolled over us is.
TAPPER: One compromise being worked out in the Senate is for the creation of nonprofit insurance co-ops that individuals could buy into. They would be run by those individual members, not the government, and would compete with traditional private insurance. But, Charlie, House Democrats say co-ops are just not strong enough to compete with private insurance companies and thus drive down costs. The White House says the President has not backed off anything, he still thinks the public plan is the best way to do this, but he has not drawn any lines in the sand.
CHARLES GIBSON: But will he go to the mat for a public option? He says now it’s just a sliver of health care reform. But earlier he said it's a lot more than that.
TAPPER: Well, I think that's exactly right, and I think you saw just what he is not willing to go to the mat for. If it's just a sliver, why would he go to the mat for it? The President, at this point, I think there is a pragmatism that is coming over this White House. They realize that it is more important for them to pass something, even if it is incremental and not everything they wanted to pass, and so they are setting expectations lower and lower.
GIBSON: But, Jake, we talked to several health care experts today, and they all said if you take out the public option in terms of insurance, there's going to be no restraints on the cost of insurance. And one by one, it seems, the cost-saving measures are coming out of health care reform.
TAPPER: That's exactly right, and you saw over the weekend Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius also said that it looked like the end of life care provisions would also be gone from the bill. And that's another area where they had hoped to achieve real cost savings. So this bill is really being winnowed down considerably.
GIBSON: All right, Jake Tapper at the White House tonight.
—Rich Noyes is Research Director at the Media Research Center.
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Comments Policy
Renaming
August 18, 2009 - 10:53 ET by slickwillie2001He doesn't need to 'go to the mat for a public option'. They will simply rename it the 'Co-op Option' and push that through. If that fails, they will come up with another name to hide what they are really doing. It's all a propaganda game and they have only lost round one.
I'll never figure out how a
August 18, 2009 - 10:53 ET by Chris NormanI'll never figure out how a grown man, like Gibson, who's educated and been around, can be so stupid.
The "Mainstream" Media: By liberals. For liberals.
Cost controls?
August 18, 2009 - 11:05 ET by jondelwicheAsk doctors.....
Without two simple reforms, healthcosts will soar:
1. Tort reform-- to limit the needless, hundreds of billions of medical tests done every year.
2. An honest discussion about the expensive end of life care.
The Dems run from this--like little girls-- at the first mention of it from Sarah Palin.
Look at Medicare's unfunded liabilities, a public option only ensures costs will escalate. How stupid are these media types?
I wonder if he'd entertain
August 18, 2009 - 11:13 ET by mattmI wonder if he'd entertain the idea of a "private" option???? Nahhhh.
"GIBSON: But, Jake, we
August 18, 2009 - 11:18 ET by ckc1227"GIBSON: But, Jake, we talked to several health care experts today, and
they all said if you take out the public option in terms of insurance,
there's going to be no restraints on the cost of insurance."
The public option doesn't restrain the costs either, it just refuses to pay them.
Go to the mat or the mattresses?
August 18, 2009 - 11:37 ET by StarAZI don't see the president getting down and dirty with the hoi polloi on anything--he leaves that to his Chicago posse and shadowy groups that provide people's email addresses.
Yes, Obama loves the
August 18, 2009 - 11:56 ET by celatorYes, Obama loves the approving roar of the crowds far too much to deal directly with difficult issues. That's why he has hitmen Emmanuel and Axelrod and those czars doing the heavy lifting.
None of these strange characters give a rat's bum about health care "for all". For them, this whole circus is just a device to keep plucking away the last feathers of citizen privacy. Their goal: assume tyrannical power over the citizenry of the United States. Simple as that.
Anyone who refuses to rescue a child after a botched abortion has no credibility in the arena of health care.
No citizen's right to life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, or property is safe as long as Obama is President of the United States.
A Known Tell
August 18, 2009 - 11:47 ET by UtherpendJust like a Poker Tell, how do you tell when the News Media is worried their policies are failing? They start talking about how it might fail.
"For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security."
He's is trying to save face
August 18, 2009 - 12:04 ET by NonArabOmarHe's is trying to save face now by trying to get anything passed. Obama didn't understand the right and worse of all, he didn't understand his own base.
The grassroots support for Obamacare isn't there. Who are the power brokers for the Democrats? Unions, billionaires, limo liberals, social activists, environmentalists.
"Free" healthcare is not on top of list for social activists and environmentalists that would rather focus on saving trees or promoting gay right, abortion, feminism. These people voted for Obama 'cause he's black, for the "change" in society, etc.
Soros and Oprah can afford their own healthcare.
Unions... the whole point for the union existing is giving their members health benefits. If you are in a union, you probably have private insurance. Do you think a lot of union members want to give up their private insurance? no
Limo liberal socialites... again, wealthy. Do they want to give up their plastic surgeries, healthcare when they want it for a bunch of slobs? no
The Hollywood Elite.. a lot of 'em are wealthy. Musician, actors, producers. . . they don't need the socialized medicine.
Even the common people you would consider to have a vested interest in the Democrats success in promoting the socialist agenda may already enjoy their state run healthcare. Elderly and disabled have Medicaire. And people on state assistance may already enjoy Medicaid.
"Soros and Oprah can afford
August 18, 2009 - 13:27 ET by ckc1227"Soros and Oprah can afford their own healthcare"
Not only that, they, along with Warren Buffet, can afford to start their own low-priced health insurance company that caters to the poor if they were so concerned about the poor having no option. Yet, for some reason, they don't do this. Why? Because they're not stupid. They have no interest in losing investments, and they know such a thing is a loser. So it will be for government too.
How to save health care costs
August 18, 2009 - 18:39 ET by ThisnThatGet rid of our damn policies that allow illegals to get health care for free. This is from the County of Los Angeles -- one of over 3,000 counties in the U.S.
L.A. County welfare for kids of illegal aliens tops $48 million in June
Source: Office of Supervisor Michael D. Antonivich
Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, Fifth District
Posted: Aug. 11, 2009 3:37 p.m.
POSTED Aug. 11, 2009 5:20 p.m.
LOS ANGELES COUNTY - Figures from the Department of Public Social Services show that children of illegal aliens in Los Angeles County collected nearly $22 million in welfare and over $26 million in food stamps in June, according to county Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich.
Projected over a 12 month period, this would exceed $575 million.
Annually the cost of illegal immigration to Los Angeles County taxpayers exceeds $1 billion dollars, which includes $350 million for public safety, $400 million for health care, and $500 million in welfare and food stamps allocations.
Twenty-four percent of the county's total allotment of welfare and food stamp benefits goes directly to U.S.-born children of illegal aliens.
"Illegal immigration continues to have a catastrophic impact on Los Angeles County taxpayers," Antonovich said. "The total cost for illegal immigrants to county taxpayers exceeds $1 billion a year - not including the millions of dollars for education."
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