Daschle Urges Obama To Drop Federal Public Health Care Plan

*** UPDATED BELOW ***

The man once slated to head Barack Obama's health care system overhaul is now coming out against one of the chief components of that effort.

Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle said on Wednesday that the Obama White House would likely have to scrap a federal public option for health insurance coverage if it wanted to get the votes needed to pass systematic change.

"We've come too far and gained too much momentum for our efforts to fail over disagreement on one single issue," the Senator and one-time HHS Secretary nominee said, according to ABC News.

The remarks came after Dashcle, along with former Senate Majority Leaders Bob Dole and Howard Baker introduced his own proposal for health care reform. That plan actually included a version of a government-run option. The Daschle proposal calls for (among other things) public insurance pools to be administered by state government, not the feds.

In coming out against a federal public plan, Daschle adds kindling to an already roaring debate on health care reform. On Thursday morning, former Vermont Governor Howard Dean repeated the mantra that you cannot have effective legislation if it does not include a public option. At the White House on Wednesday, several state legislators who had met with current HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius argued the same point.

Certainly, the public seems to be weighed in Dean's favor. An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll conducted on Wednesday night showed that 76 percent of respondents wanted a choice between a public option for insurance coverage and private providers.

UPDATE: A spokesman for the former majority leader called the Huffington Post to insist that Daschle is "still committed to the public plan" and was not urging Obama to drop it from his proposal.

"He was saying that we shouldn't let any issue derail what would be health care reform," said Eileen McMenamin, Director of Communications at the Bipartisan Policy Center. "He definitely did not say there should be no public plan."

Daschle, said McMenamin, did believe that a public plan could be administered by the states. And his chief concern with Obama'a approach was not the policy basis but the politics of getting it through Congress.

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Comments

[mamamay]

01:31 AM on 06/23/2009

Let's get this HC P on the move. it is time for the many to vote on for the victory of this HealthCare Plan. It appears that the few who cant prove their lead as being their hiway are trying to stop all traffic to the success of this plan. We need to stand up and be counted as leading this Healthcare Plan caravan to to it's destinatio­n via the many detours we will meet on the way. No one says it has to be a straight shot. No one says it has to be a perfect plan. However, Many of us are saying that we need to get started NOW, that we will arrive on time in good shape. I believe that this Health plan has more human characteri­stics than folks are accustomed to dealing with, therefore, they are getting TD type cold feet. If we don't stand up for this plan that we believe in 2009, we will contnue to fall for any fear factoring idea tossed in the middle of our path. It should not take over 50 years to get our Health Care Plan moving. Stop the excuses. It wasn't Clintons fault yesterday, and we won't listen to TD today. We all need to drive on and pitch in after those we've voted in, VOTE it in. It will work. We can make it work.
We all need it young and old.

[Lin96]

10:33 AM on 06/22/2009

The crooks are out in groves against the public option for healthcare­. There must be something RIGHT with that option.

[ConnectTheDots]

04:43 PM on 06/21/2009

eph ewe, Tom.

[Janus]

03:37 PM on 06/21/2009

Bob Dole's being mixed up in this should be no surprise. In recent years, he boasted about having been against Medicare and Medicaid while in office.

The opposition of the Plutocrati­c Party in safety net legislatio­n has been historic. Witness the opposition of the same political crowd of stooges who opposed Social Security/R­ailroad Retirement Acts,,Unem­ployment Insurance, the National Labor Relations Act and the Railway Labor Act enacted during FDR's tenure.

Going back farther in time, it was President Teddy Roosevelt, the progressiv­e Republican­, who successful­y brought about the enactment of the Food & Drug Act and the Federal Employers' Liability Act and led the fight against the Big Trusts..Af­ter Taft had cast his lot as President with the fatcats, Teddy in his fury ran on the Progressiv­e Party ticket in 1912. Of the three candidates­, Wilson won, TR was second, and Taft came in last as a sitting president trying for re-electio­n!

Yes, as history shows the Plutocrats have been and always will be relying upon the Republican Party, which has morphed into the Plutocrati­c Party that began with Reagan and continued into the abyss created by Puppet Bush who gave us the current Golden Age II that has brought so much joy to the plutocrats and their pathetic Dupes whose unalloyed ignorance kept them cheering and voting against their own interests in the name of patriotism and for many in the name of Jesus as well.from the 1980s foward.

[lefty247]

12:36 PM on 06/21/2009

Democrats are really good at stabbing Democrats in the back...

[Free2Speak]

08:56 AM on 06/21/2009

We dodged a bullet...w­e almost made him HHS.Talkin­g about the fox in charge of the chicken house.

[kim908]

06:35 AM on 06/21/2009

Thank God Mr Daschle is a tax cheat and did not oversee the Healthcare reform. We need the public option to keep costs down and keep the insurance companies honest. We also need to eliminate pre-existi­ng conditions and have pricing fair to all recipients­. These are basic to the congressio­nal plans and should be basic for the country.

[macedonia356bc]

02:04 AM on 06/21/2009

i was upset when Tom Dashle had 2 resign as Sec.Health­., now ,I AM NOT. Oh what ablessing in disguise his resignatio­n was!!!

[Nabipoursikami2]

01:58 AM on 06/21/2009

So that's why the reforms aren't happening. Democrats have all the power but can't stop bickering with each other. Too much infighting­, too many special interests at stake.

Get it together, or 2010 elections won't be pretty!

[quiviran]

12:16 AM on 06/21/2009

National Health Care Plan. Not 50 different state plans in a constant state of "It's not my problem". What happens when the guy who lives in Seattle for a company headquarte­red in Chicago travels to Wichita on company business and gets sick there (recovers after excellent treatment by Kansas doctors). Who pays? Should Kansas bear the cost for a guy who pays taxes in Washington­? Or bear costs for a company headquarte­red in Illinois? This idea is yet another case of DC Dodgeball.

[rem]

08:31 PM on 06/20/2009

So he wants it, but not enough for it to be a deal breaker? He must think this is smooth bargaining­, letting everyone know what you are willing to cave on. He can be for it and against it at the same time!

We need the federal public health care option! It seems that Tom Daschle knows where his bread is buttered. We don't need more Billy Tousins selling us out to the health care industry.

If there were a credible baseline federal policy then insurance companies could compete over the options that are added to it. Oh, but then their chief executives might not get $100m per year. My heart pumps purple peanut butter for them.

[Fred Donaldson]

10:11 AM on 06/23/2009

Some of these opponents (political and corporate) to healthcare­, minimum wage, fair taxes for the rich, public education, and a host of issues, are mean, evil, selfish, greedy monsters who should rot in Hell, because they know exactly what they are doing and they know they are wrong. Their greed, selfishnes­s and elite hatred of those poorer than them is behind nearly every problem in this country.

[Michael Marzelli]

08:10 PM on 06/20/2009

I use to think Tom Dashele was a stand up guy. I was wrong!

[Michael Marzelli]

08:09 PM on 06/20/2009

I use to think Tom Dashell was a stand up guy. I was wrong.

[Michael Marzelli]

08:02 PM on 06/20/2009

If you guys can't peek down your shorts and find a pair i will work very hard to unseat the Dem's in the next election

[bobo6]

05:56 PM on 06/20/2009

Does anyone understand that the reason there are so many comments is because the citizens of America are fed up with the crap that has been shoved down our throats for all of these years and are demanding a Single Payer health plan !!! I realize our elected officials are not only stupid but they are also extemely self absorbed so it must be made crystal clear to them that we will accept nothing less than a National Health Care Plan. If they don't get it,throw the S.O.B'S out into the real world.

[jaxjive]

10:16 AM on 06/22/2009

I agree completely­. Where does TD think state by state health coverage will get us? It might work if everybody stayed in their state, but since that isn't going to happen? And you are correct. We need to start all over again with a new legislatur­e if this one doesn't have the sense to understand the public's needs and desires. Isn't that who they're supposed to be working for?