Flak from the left flank on health care. The White House is getting a good old fashioned liberal whipping today and it's probably going to keep growing.
The White House is pretty much signaling that they are open to nixing the government run public option. Liberal Democrats are not happy.
Read transcriped comments by liberal MSNBC Host Rachel Maddow from Meet the Press Yesterday:
"Ultimately, if the president decides that he's going to go with a reform effort that doesn't include a public option, what he will have done is spent a ton of political capital, riled up an incredibly angry right wing base who's been told that this is a plot to kill grandma, grandma, and he will have achieved something that doesn't change health care very much and that doesn't save us very much money and won't do very much for the American people. It's not a very good thing to spend a lot of political capital on."
Look, here's the deal. Remember when everyone wanted President Obama to state his health care non-negotiables? The President took hits because he would never really say specifically what he was for or against. Yes he stated specifically that he wanted the government run option but would never say that it was a must do part of the final bill. Now we know why. The administration needed wiggle room in case the public soured on the government option which seems to be the case.
Liberals can cry all they want about the fact that The White House may be getting rid of the public option but umm...reality check here. The votes aren't there in the Senate and let's face it. The country may simply not be ready for it yet. I'm sure the latte sipping, New York Times reading crowd on the Upper West Side of New York are ready for it but it ain't playing as well in Peoria. The White House is just playing smart politics. Get what you can and move on.