Obama Tossing Public Option

Rep. Raul Grijalva confirmed to Talking Points Memo that President Barack Obama is pressing the Progressive Caucus to give up the public option.

And progressive caucus co-chair Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) told Greg Sargent that Obama outright asked the participants how far they're willing to compromise on the public option.

All in all it appears very much as if the President is feeling out how willing House Democrats will be to support a bill that falls short of meeting their earlier demands for a Medicare-like public option available to consumers nation-wide, without any triggers. As I reported earlier today, Obama's set to meet with progressive House leaders Tuesday ahead of his big health care speech before Congress. That's shaping up to be an extremely crucial meeting.

Howard Dean explained how a bill without the public option would be a giveaway to corporate insurance interests.

"The problem is it won't work. It doesn't add anything. If you're going to do that, just do the insurance reform," said Dean. "There's no point in spending $600 billion and giving it to the insurance industry. We know what they'll do with it. I'm hopeful he'll stick to his guns and we'll have the reform we were promised in the campaign."

My fear is a corporate giveaway was always Obama's intent.