well, liberals and a vast majority of Americans

Analysis: Liberals prod Obama on their health bill

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama has learned the lessons of Bill Clinton's failed bid to overhaul the nation's health care system. Too well, in fact, say fellow Democrats angry over his refusal to intervene while a conservative proposal advances in the Senate.

Obama says he supports a government-run health insurance program to compete with private insurers, a proposal that is popular with many Americans, especially Democrats. But he is standing by as a watered-down, bipartisan version appears likely to be included in a Senate package.

The president's allies hope it can be strengthened later, or at least accepted by liberals who want a tougher measure. Compromise is essential to every tough political battle, they say, and Obama may prove wise by keeping his options open in a health care debate certain to last for months.

Frustrated liberal activists, however, point to polls showing strong public support for a government-run option that is more robust than the one apparently favored by the Senate Finance Committee. They ask why Democrats, who control the House, Senate and White House, are pushing a version backed by many Republicans.

White House aides say Obama wants to avoid issuing nonnegotiable demands early in the legislative process. He feels Clinton made such a mistake in a failed 1993 bid to revamp the health care system. Obama has made clear that he supports a bona fide public option for health insurance, which critics say is missing from the Senate Finance package, at least for now.

But Obama "wants comprehensive health reform even more," said former Sen. Tom Daschle, who has advised the administration on health care. "He will do all he can to get a public option," Daschle said, "but at the end of the day, the only thing nonnegotiable is success."

Some Democrats, however, feel Obama has over-learned the lessons of 1993 and is bending over too far to attract GOP support in the Senate. Unless he and congressional Democratic leaders agree to strengthen the public insurance provision later in the legislative process, they say, he may regret his hands-off approach.

"No one in this building wants health care reform as much as we do," California Democratic Rep. Lynn Woolsey, co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, told reporters in the Capitol this week. However, she said, if a bill "does not include a real and robust public option that lives up to our criteria, then we will fight it with everything that we have."

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Despite his rhetoric, Obama seems to sometimes forget that he won and that Americans want - very much, by a very large majority - what he promised during his campaign.
Health care can't be really reformed without a public option - otherwise, it is just more of the same.
Obama is going to lose his immense capital if he doesn't do some of the things that he promised. He is already pissing off millions by his lack of support for gay rights, he can't wimp out on this, as well.