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President Obama gave a great speech on Wednesday. Despite the fact that he told progressives to back off our demands for the public option. I sensed this was coming and the beautiful rhetoric and soaring expectations have now come face-to-face with the stinky diaper of reality.
Obama, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Reid have all signaled they are all willing to drop the public option. Would someone remind me why we're supposed to be excited about an Obama rally tomorrow? Seriously. We all know that Reid has been a weak-kneed supporter of pretty much anything, but Pelosi sounded like she'd stand up for us. The Obama Administration has been sending out signals he was going to drop it for a while now. Will you still be going to his insurance industry love-fest rally tomorrow?
The Democratic leaders of the House and Senate on Thursday signaled their willingness to drop a government run public health insurance option from a final health-care bill.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, in comments at separate news conferences, said they would support any provision that increases competition and accessibility for health insurance -whether or not it is the public option favored by most Democrats.
They spoke the day after President Barack Obama called the public option a preferred but non-essential element of overhauling the nation's ailing health-care system. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Thursday that the president's speech the night before to a joint session of Congress "reiterated the public option is not the be-all, end-all in health-care reform."
Oh well. The will of the people has been thrown under the bus because the will of the corporations is far more important. Let the rejoicing begin.
The stocks of several health insurers performed better than the broader market Thursday. Shares of Cigna rose more than 5 percent, and Humana Inc., WellPoint Inc. and Aetna Inc. all climbed at least 2 percent.
Investors are ''coming more and more to the conclusion that it's really not going to hurt,'' said BMO Capital Markets analyst Dave Shove.
Shove noted that many insurers already operate profitably in states that have restrictions similar to those being discussed in reform proposals. These include limits on profitability and laws that guarantee coverage for individual insurance.
Health care reform without a public option ''would be fantastic'' for insurers, said Robert Laszewski, president of Health Policy and Strategy Associates, a Virginia-based health care consulting firm.
"They're going to get millions of new customers and more than a trillion in new premiums over a 10-year period,'' said Laszewski, a former industry executive. ''There's a reason they aren't running any negative ads."
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