Administration says public option still possible

The Obama administration on Tuesday insisted that including a public option in a health reform overhaul was still a possibility.

"Here's the bottom line: Absolutely nothing has changed. We continue to support the public option that will help lower costs, give American consumers more choice and keep private insurers honest," HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Tuesday morning at an event on Medicare fraud.

"If people have other ideas about how to accomplish these goals, we'll look at those, too, but the public option is a very good way to do this," she said.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Tuesday morning that reports of a shift in administration policy were exaggerated, and the White House did not intend to signal a new position. "If it was a signal, it was a dog whistle we started blowing weeks ago," Gibbs said on Tuesday.

The furor erupted on Sunday after Sebelius said the public option was not essential to a healthcare overhaul. Tuesday, she sought to dismiss it by saying "Sunday must have been a very slow news day."

Democrats have spent the August recess weathering fire from Republicans and other conservatives who claim a public option would amount to a government takeover of health care.

The six Senate Finance Committee members working to negotiate a bipartisan bill will not include a public option in their plan.

"We're trying to get bipartisan cooperation, and one of those things is not to have a government-run health plan," Finance Committee ranking member Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said Tuesday on Fox News.

During a separate appearance on MSNBC, Grassley said he would vote against any healthcare bill coming out of the Finance Committee if it does not have wide Republican support.

"I'm negotiating for Republicans. If I can't negotiate something that gets more than four Republicans, I'm not a good negotiator," he said.

Finance Committee negotiators are slated to continue ongoing negotiations via telephone this week, sources said.

Over the weekend and again on Tuesday Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., said a bill that includes a public option could not get 60 votes in the Senate, and even the Senate's strong supporters of a public option are starting to acknowledge the political difficulty of including one.

"It is only a part of reform. It is an important part," Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., told a room full of medical educators, students and physicians at Wayne State University's School of Medicine on Tuesday. "Those of us on the inside are looking at what we can do and looking at the votes."

The bill passed by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee includes a public option, as do all three of the versions approved by House committees -- and the comments from administration officials came after liberal Democrats insisted a bill without a public option was unacceptable.

"To take the public option off the table would be a grave error; passage in the House of Representatives depends upon inclusion of it," Reps. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., and Barbara Lee, D-Calif., wrote in a letter to Sebelius on Monday. Grijalva and Woolsey co-chair the Congressional Progressive Caucus and Lee is chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus.

The lawmakers also included a second letter -- sent this summer and signed by more than 50 liberal Democrats -- insisting that a public option be included in legislation.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said House leaders back a public option but stopped short of saying it was necessary in order to pass a bill.

"There is strong support in the House for a public option," she said. "A public option is the best option to lower costs, improve the quality of health care, ensure choice and expand coverage."