After yesterday’s press conference, reporters are understandably trying to get a clearer sense from the administration on whether the president’s obvious personal preference for a public option will ultimately translate into an ultimatum to Congress demanding one.
Here’s Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius fielding one such question.
“One of his bottom lines is, he refuses to talk about any plan that really doesn’t lower costs. And if you have a monopoly in the marketplace, it’s very difficult to lower costs.”
That may be the closest we’ll get to an answer at this point–but the idea here is that Obama a). wouldn’t support a plan that doesn’t lower costs, and b). finds it hard to believe
that a reform proposal without a public plan would succeed at lowering costs. Ergo…. we wait for the CBO, I guess. But Obama’s been pretty clear that he’s going to keep his powder dry publicly until the process in Congress reaches greater maturity.
