We noted earlier that President Obama’s political arm Organizing for America had distributed internal talking points urging organizers to describe the public option as a “small part” of health care reform.
Apparently, though, that was a bit of a snafu–the talking points emerged at the state level, were not approved from up on high–and the group doesn’t stand by them. Instead, they’re sticking with the bullet points on OFA’s website, which describes Obama’s plan as one that includes a public option.
That said, OFA isn’t completely disavowing the idea behind the erroneous talking points, noting that it came from Obama himself. An OFA spokesman says, “The talking points may have been inartfully worded, but aren’t really that different from what the President has said all along.”
“The president wants to sign a bill that reduces costs and increases access–and he believes the public option is the easiest, but not necessarily the only, way to achieve that goal.”
OFA used to have a somewhat harder line on the public option, but has moderated it somewhat as the the health care fight has drawn on.
