Woolsey, House liberals demand 'public option' health plan

<p>Rep. Lynn Woolsey and other House liberals are rebelling against the Obama administration’s apparent willingness to abandon government-funded insurance from the proposed health care overhaul.</p><p>The Petaluma Democrat, well know as an advocate for the disadvantaged, is sticking to her principles as a co-chairwoman of the House Progressive Caucus.</p><p>Woolsey said she will vote against any measure that lacks a “robust public option” based on the Medicare model and intended to compete with private insurance.</p><p>Without it, health care remains “business as usual,” Woolsey said by phone from an education conference in Banff, Alberta. “It’s not reform without the public option.”</p><p>Woolsey and two other Democrats co-signed a letter Monday to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius saying it would be a “grave error” to drop the so-called public option.</p><p>“Passage in the House of Representatives depends upon inclusion of it,” the letter said.</p><p>In a separate letter, Woolsey and Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, joined 58 other House Democrats in pledging to vote against any plan that fails at “keeping insurance companies honest.”</p><p>Whether they have enough votes to make a difference is uncertain, analysts said, adding that President Barack Obama’s shift was more about political pragmatism than backtracking.</p><p>“I think Obama is a realist,” said Barbara O’Connor, director of the Institute for the Study of Politics and the Media at California State University, Sacramento. “I don’t view him as waffling.”</p><p>Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, a member of the fiscally conservative Blue Dogs, joined Woolsey two weeks ago in advocating for the public option, paid for by a tax on wealthy citizens.</p><p>Thompson was on a House Intelligence Committee trip to an undisclosed location and could not be contacted Tuesday, an aide said.</p><p>The potentially widening split among Democrats was triggered by Sebelius’ comment on a Sunday talk show that a public insurance option is “not the essential element” of the health care overhaul.</p><p>Woolsey said Sebelius’ comment may have been a “trial balloon” aimed at gauging sentiment on the option.</p><p>“That balloon lost its air,” she said.</p><p>All three House health-care bills include a public option, but Woolsey said one of them was unacceptably watered down.</p><p>Jack Pitney, a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College east of Los Angeles, predicted the House’s final version will include the public option, the Senate bill will not and the outcome will be determined by a conference committee.</p><p>House liberals can “hang tough” on the issue, Pitney said, noting it would be a “bad negotiating tactic” to compromise now.</p><p>The idea of nonprofit co-operatives selling insurance, a possible substitute for the government-funded program, is “not a public option,” Woolsey said.</p><p>The public option has no Republican support in Congress, and “quite a few Democrats are wary of it, too,” Pitney said. </p><p>O’Connor said Obama is determined to provide “health care for everyone” and will compromise to get it. He “can’t take a loss” and get no health care bill at all, she said.</p><p>The conference committee bill likely will include the co-op approach, O’Connor predicted.</p><p>Both analysts said Obama is behaving much like former President Bill Clinton did at the start of his first term in 1993, irking Democrats by backing the North American Free Trade Agreement and implementing the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gays in the military.</p><p>“The Democratic Party is known to eat its own,” O’Connor said.</p>