Bad news, good news on health care reform

David Dayen at FDL News Desk has both in Obama Meeting With Progressives And Caucus Leaders Focused On Triggers And Opt-Out 10/30/09. The headline has the bad news, which David summarizes as follows, "Most of the discussion, [Adam] Sarvana said, was about House members’ opposition to public option compromises like triggers and the opt-out." (emphasis in original)

The good news:

The Congressional Progressive Caucus remains on the record as 100% opposed to the trigger AND the opt-out clause, which has not really been prominent in the debate. Everyone assumes that whatever passes the Senate on the public option will represent what must appear in the final bill, but House progressives are, for the moment, not backing down in their opposition.

I've got to admit it's discouraging to see the President in this situation leaning on the liberals to let him flush the public option when we haven't seen any comparable pressure from the White House on the Blue Dogs to get on board with the public plan. Obama's senior adviser Valerie Jarrett was right when she said at this summer's Netroots Nation convention that they had no intention to pressure the Blue Dogs on the public option. "But clearly, the White House wanted to feel out that opposition and see if they could potentially break it down," David writes.

Tags: health care reform, obama administration

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