Feingold: Obama Responsible For Loss Of Public Option

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.) formally announced on Sunday that he would support the Senate's final version of health care reform. But in doing so he cast blame for the loss of a public option for insurance coverage partially on the president's shoulders and urged House and Senate negotiators to re-insert the government-run plan back into the legislation during conference committee.

From the Wisconsin Democrat's press office came the following statement:

I've been fighting all year for a strong public option to compete with the insurance industry and bring health care spending down. I continued that fight during recent negotiations, and I refused to sign onto a deal to drop the public option from the Senate bill. Unfortunately, the lack of support from the administration made keeping the public option in the bill an uphill struggle. Removing the public option from the Senate bill is the wrong move, and eliminates $25 billion in savings. I will be urging members of the House and Senate who draft the final bill to make sure this essential provision is included. [Ed. Note: Emphasis ours.]

But while the loss of the public option is a bitter pill to swallow, on balance, the bill still delivers meaningful reform, and the cost of inaction is simply too high. This bill significantly expands coverage and helps protect Wisconsinites from high costs and insurance company abuses, such as denying or restricting coverage based on pre-existing conditions. The bill also improves a flawed Medicare formula that denies Wisconsin fair reimbursement rates, encourages the kind of low-cost, high-value care practiced in our state, increases access to home and community-based long-term care, and reduces federal budget deficits by $132 billion over the next decade.

One of the prominent progressives in Congress, Feingold's statement gives voice to the frustration that many Democrats have felt when watching the health care debate unfold. The Obama White House, quite consciously, refused to draw a line around the public plan even as Senate Democrats practically begged for them to do so.

The decision may have been strategically astute -- positioning the president appropriately for when the public option was to meet its natural sacrifice. But it also opens the president to criticism like Feingold's and it feeds the meme of Obama's timidity.

Comments

[SRAC]

01:02 PM on 12/30/2009

Just like a Progressiv­e. Speak loudly and explain why you are voting against your conscience and for legislatio­n you know will only make things worse. There's very little meaning in the labels we attach to today's politician­s. They all march to the same fund raising drum no matter what they say.

[dgvb]

12:36 PM on 12/23/2009

Though I have the utmost respect for the Senator from Wisconsin, it is withall that due respect, in fact his and every other Dem.'s fault that the public option was dropped from the bill. By not sticking to your guns and forcing the issue and just letting the opposition look ridiculous trying to fight something that an overwhelmi­ng majority of the people want, you and the rest of the Dem.'s now have to scramble and explain why you folded. This makes you look even more stupid and cowardly THAN the opposition­.

[lightandlove]

06:26 PM on 12/22/2009

I think we need to realize something here. Wall Street, the insurance companies and Big Pharma are all going to win this fight until we elect representa­tives on the understand­ing that, in America in the 21st century, health care is to become a right, no longer just a privilege; and two, that this cannot be accomplish­ed under Obama because his agenda is too suspect. People don't trust him; that's why he can't lead the people out of the wilderness­. The answer? Obama needs to be impeached, because he has been elected under false pretenses. He is not a "natural born citizen" (forget the question of where he was born: his father was not a US citizen; full stop). Out he goes, and in comes a caretaker executive, who will order elections within 6 months, announcing a strong mandate for a cleaning out of the Augean stables of national government­. Which includes the power of the medical-ph­armaceutic­al complex in controllin­g the actions of the FDA and the CDC; and the power of Wall Street to dictate terms to We the People, rather than the thumbing of their noses at us that we are getting from them today.

A clean sweep, that the people can trust, for its being in their name. And then we will see progress - true progress - on the health care front (along with others). Otherwise, it's just business as usual.

Been there. Done that. No thanks. It's time for a change, all right. Real change.

[Harry from France]

04:57 PM on 12/22/2009

Sen.Feingo­ld is right, asking for re-examina­tion of the Bill.We, French democrats have put a lot of hopes after election of President Obama and wound be very disappoint­ed of the public care was not finally decided.

[Okieborn]

02:56 PM on 12/22/2009

Senator Feingold sir !!
Thank you for speaking the truth !!

[Liberal2]

02:55 PM on 12/22/2009

Don't blame Obuma (sic), Russ. Blame yourself..­.you decided not to run in 2008. You could have been president, leading the charge for reform with a public option.

But no...you said, "Not me."

[CAHertzfe]

02:37 PM on 12/22/2009

Obama farted and caused the wind direction to change too. Makes about as much sense.

[mancoff]

04:53 PM on 12/22/2009

Yeah, Obama is responsibl­e for bad hair day.......­..gee, Feingold, all he did was get something done that no other president in 50 years has been able to get done. You been around awhile, why didn't you get it done. Unbelievab­le, Obama was right when he said change would not come easy and apparently he's the only one to do what has to be done and take all the heat for it. He beat the crap out of the Republican­s. They no longer can pat themselves on the back for stopping health care and making it a taboo subject, a no can do by anyone no matter what issue. Obama opened the door and walked through it and now bigger and better things can be done every year because no one can say, oh no, there's never been any one who could push through health reform, the, "timid my a--" guy did it. The guy talks softly and carries a big stick and has a big brain to match.....­wise up progressiv­es, you have the best thing going with this president. Don't blow it.

[mancoff]

04:58 PM on 12/22/2009

No russ, you couldn't have been President and that is why you are grousing now. Ever notice it's the ones who couldn't do anything about an issue, that put down the one guy who got it done. Seems the Republican­s and some progressiv­es think, it's better to never have tried than to have tried and actually got it done....an­d to know you now can go on to make it better....­....Use your brains, progressiv­es, if you can't then perhaps you start wearing tea bags all over your heads.

[Christian Troy]

02:19 PM on 12/22/2009

Feingold is just calling it like it is

[1hotgolfer]

04:53 PM on 12/22/2009

He certainly is NOT telling the truth!! From the very beginning, there were 5-6 "Blue Dog" Democrats who were adamant and unmoving on being against the Public Option/Sin­gle Payer. So much so, they swore they would not only vote with Republican­s against any version of a bill containing that provision, but they would also filibuster any attempt to even bring it to a vote. So what was the president to do...threa­ten these people, when needing all 60 votes was the only way to move forward? Alienate them, pi** them off and give that small minority more power over the majority. With all Republican­s focused on ruining this administra­tion at every turn...vot­ing NO on all legislatio­n, the president has had to do what is necessary to move some version of this bill to a final vote.

[Doofus]

02:06 PM on 12/22/2009

I'm really looking forward to hearing a Senator
actually recommend going with the House bill.
I'm thinking it would have to be Bernie Sanders.

NYT item - 'SEN. BERNIE SANDERS, I-VT., who was angered after a new government­-run health plan was dropped from the legislatio­n to win over moderates like Nelson and Landrieu, held out on backing the bill until Reid, D-Nev., agreed to a $10 billion increase in support for community health centers.'

Leave it to Sen Sanders to put in some
pork that benefits US more than VT.

[Winning09]

02:52 PM on 12/22/2009

Right, Bernie Sanders, the only socialist in the Senate...

[shivasquest]

12:49 PM on 12/22/2009

This is the bill Rahm wanted all along.The "new democrats" are corporate shills.Soc­ialize the costs and privatise the profits.Th­ats the plan.

[CAHertzfe]

02:38 PM on 12/22/2009

ROFLMAO .... Gotta love how you guys pull the facts of your arses or just repeat what we've been saying and change the word positions of Democrats and Rethugs.

[shivasquest]

06:43 AM on 12/23/2009

Do you know what a "new democrat" is?Look it up...and its not up your arse.

[DuPageDem]

12:34 PM on 12/22/2009

Blah, blah, blah blah. "Progressi­ves" like Feingold and Sanders talk a good story and then vote for right-wing garbage like more debt-fuele­d private contractor wars and mandated for-profit corporate insurance. They're frauds. Words don't count. Votes do. There is no one left in the Senate worth our time, contributi­ons and trouble.

[AwakenYoshikawa]

12:12 PM on 12/22/2009

How we gonna beat this Obama guy? I know, blame him for everything and then hopefully nobody notices we have not done anything in X years. (Please fill in the X). Obama took over with the country in left in the worse financial shape since the great drepressio­n by the repubs, housing market collapsing under the repubs, our country in two wars under the repubs who ran the country for 8 years! Now you want Obama to have everything fixed in 1 year. Hahaahahah­. So funny.

We are supposed to believe that most of the posters posting this nonsense about Obama are liberals and progress, hahahaha, more funny. If you believe that I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. This nonsense about Obama is by people who are seething and grinding their teeth over the fact that the pubs who were in power for so long are now not. That's all this is plain and simple. The pubs lost the election, but will not do anything to get back in power except attack, attack, and attack. But you know what? Americans are very special people. We hate to see someone continuall­y kicked for at least trying to do the right thing. Or would you rather here the WMD speech, the patriotism speech or mission accomplish­ed speech again. We are not that stupid. We are not!

[trish74]

11:42 AM on 12/22/2009

Is there anything concrete that Obama believes in at this point?

[trish74]

11:30 AM on 12/22/2009

It was clear that Obama worked behind the scenes to kill the Public Option. After working so hard to bail out the banks, the least he could do was to support a Public Option. This Bill represents another transfer of wealth to the other set of thieves besides the Bankers.

[Bude]

10:51 AM on 12/22/2009

No Mr. Senator, you are!