September 10 ,2009

The Premise: President Obama, elected on the promise of change and health care reform, has been committed to a public option that would pose real competition to private health insurance companies and is now backing off.

Has Obama lied? Kind of.

Stirring as President Obama's speech was last night, ultimately one of the key questions was how committed is to the public option.

With thanks to Firedoglake, Obama's speech had at least three qualifying sentences suggesting that his committment is less than full:

--"The public option is only a means to that end--and we should remain open to other ideas that accomplish our ultimate goal."

--"For example, some have suggested that the public option go into effect only in those markets where insurance companies are not providing affordable policies."

--"Others propose a co-op or another non-profit entity to administer the plan. These are all constructive ideas worth exploring."

What keeps Obama's wobbliness from being a major 180 is the fact that even though Obama campaigned for "change you can believe in," he was always fuzzy when it came to his position on the public option. According to a Huffington Post report by Sam Stein, an examination of 200 articles published during the campaign shows that Obama spoke quite infrequently about a government-run public option.

Yet as candidate Obama did sign a statement supporting the public option written by Health Care for America Now, a reform group, and on various issues forms he filled out he pledge to "create a new public health plan for those currently without coverage." 

We think that counts as a lie--but the larger lesson may be that Obama campaigned as a bit of a blank slate and that progressives chose to see the public option as a a major commitment him, when it is not.

Prognosis: Watch for an attempt to craft a compromise health care bill that will allow the public option to go into effect after certain conditions--high premiums for insurance policies, for example-- trigger the option. The likely outcome is that he will back off the public option to get the health bill through Congress--even if it means the bill is considerably weaker than many of his supporters had hoped.