Obama: The Public Option

From Matt Lockshin, campaign manager for CREDO Mobile:

President Obama needs to hear from us about the public option.

If we don't make a stand now for a public option, the Obama administration may hedge on its plan for health care reform.

This weekend, the Obama administration indicated that it might be open to passing health care reform without any provision for a public insurance option similar to Medicare that could compete with private insurance companies.

President Obama said that a public option was just a "sliver" of his plan and Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius went so far as to say that the public option was not an "essential" part of reform.

The comments this weekend by the president and Secretary Sebelius rhetorically pave the way for the Obama administration to cave on a meaningful public option and instead accept toothless regional health care co-ops that would be unable to compete with insurance companies and keep them honest.

Help us remind President Obama that part of the reason he won the presidency was his plan to enact major health care reform that included a public option, a provision that 76% of Americans support.

Click here to automatically add your name to the above petition asking President Obama to tell Congress and the voters that he will only sign a bill with a robust public option similar to Medicare.

Thank you for working to secure real health care reform.

18 August 2009