Public Option Still Alive - Believe It

Friday 09 October 2009
by: Robert Weiner and Rebecca Vander Linde
The San Francisco Chronicle

Opponents' caricatures have become commonplace - the Republican National Committee video puts House Speaker Nancy Pelosi side by side with James Bond's villainess, Miss Galore. The Iowa Republican, a party newsletter, on Sept. 18 called Pelosi "inept at her job." Actor and former Sen. Fred Thompson labeled her "naive."

Rush Limbaugh's numerous jabs include "She can multitask. She can breastfeed, she can clip her toenails, she can direct the House, all while the kids are sitting on her lap." Washington Times editor emeritus Wesley Pruden asserted that Pelosi's speakership is "about celebrating estrogen."

On Sept. 10, master Republican strategist Karl Rove asked, "How much capital will Speaker Nancy Pelosi have" to pass health care?

Pelosi answered that in a conversation Sept. 29 at House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers' 80th birthday party, after the Senate Finance Committee had just rejected the Medicare-like public option for all by a 10-13 vote: "We will not be deterred. We will pass the bill."

The public option is still viable. The House is set to pass it. It is neither "fading" nor "waning" (New York Times) nor on "life support" (ABC News).

The House bill with a public option is strongly supported by Pelosi and all three House committees that sent the bill forward. When it does pass, compromises with the Senate of triggers and time delays and state programs will occur. That's how the process works.

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