WASHINGTON (CNN) - Speaker Nancy Pelosi dismissed snags in Senate health care reform negotiations and insisted Thursday the House will pass a bill that includes a government run health care option to compete with private insurers.
"I have every confidence that we will have a public option coming out of the House of Representatives," Pelosi said at her weekly press conference.
Pelosi made it clear that a government run insurance plan is a central piece of the bill being drafted by House Democrats. "I'm saying we will have a public option in the House that will be real. If it's not real, it's no use doing. And if we don't do a public option, I'm not sure that we have as effective a public health care reform as we wished."
Without giving any details on how House Democrats will pay for their plan, the Speaker repeated her commitment that health care reform will not add to the deficit. She downplayed this week's Congressional Budget Office cost estimate of the bill being considered by Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. That estimate showed the cost at $1 trillion and said millions of Americans would remain uninsured. Pelosi said that CBO's estimate applied to a bill that "is a separate subject from what the legislation that we will put forth in the House."
From CNN Politics
© 2011 Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
| Advertising practices | Advertise with us | About us | Contact us | Work for us | Help
The most recent polling shows that over 75% of those polled want the public option in the health care reform plan. Thank goodness for those Democrats that understand this and will respect the wishes of the American people.
Thank you Madamme Speaker. Put everything on the table. The insurance giants are trembling in their 3 piece suits.
If Pelosi thinks it's right, it has to be wrong.
GO Pelosi!!!....
I honor the way you fight for us no matter what polls or hypocritical republicans say or do.
stay strong
There is nothing wrong with a little competition. At present local community health centers and county health centers compete with private hospitals, the local employment office competes with temp agencies, and public school competes with private schools. Give the people the options. If the private insurance is better they will survive.
The Pelosi/Obama Health Care Plan:
Step 1: Include Public "Option"
Step 2: Law establishing mandate that every individual have coverage
Step 3: Eliminate tax deduction for employer funded health care
Step 4: Businesses eliminate employer funded health care
Step 5: Single Payer created
Step 6: Implement policies designed to make Americans healthier to reduce costs.
The goal is a single payer system as Obama TOLD the AMA (though CNN and the press edited out this part of his speech).
The outcome will be healthcare rationing for anyone not able to afford private medical treatment.
The Obama / Pelosi assault on American individual liberties continues as full pace.
"Without giving any details on how House Democrats will pay for their plan, the Speaker repeated her commitment that health care reform will not add to the deficit."
Then I will wait for that detail before evaluating the plan.
And I assume that, in the name of governmental transparency, we will be given those details in time to have public discussion of the plan before it is voted on by Congress.
Why would anybody listen to this lier and traitor. She should be sent to gitmo and take her plastic face with her. Is she or any other democrat going to give up there health plan that we pay for them? This woman is a complete and total idiot.
Democrats are sowing the seeds of their own demise. The public doesn't want the government to scale back their health care, raise taxes and run doctors out of business but forcing them to accept insufficient payments to cover their costs. A policy this unpopular is guaranteed to cause more headaches for Democrats than re-elections.
Nancy,
Will this package cover illegal aliens as well? Tell the truth for once.
Pelosi, you know as well as we citizens that the US can't afford this as we are at bankruptcy's door now. What's wrong with you?
I am hoping for a public health care option. Pres Obama said he would not sign a reform bill if it did not have a public option & I believe he will keep his word. Dems do not cave in to the party of "no" If they will not get on board, move ahead without them.
Anytime this no good windbag opens her yapper we all should be very afraid. I cannot wait until 2011, when she is no longer Speaker of the House.
She will go down in history as worst speaker ever. Joined with Reid as worst majority leader ever. Followed in 2013 by Obama as worst president ever.
I agree that the cost of our health care is out of control. People should not lose their homes because of medical bills. However, government-run health care will cost more AND we will receive less care. I sympathize with those without health care insurance. Only a few years ago, I paid over $30,000 in medical bills one year because I did not have insurance. But, I'm telling you, government-run health care is NOT the answer. Wake up, people! This hand-out is gonna cost you, your children, our grandchildren, and our g-grandchildren big time!
I just hope she sticks to her guns.
As a conservative, I can't believe I am finally uttering these words. Nancy Pelosi is right on health care. In fact, she doesn't go far enough. You need a single payer system in order to be successful with regard to health care only. There is no other way. Liberals need to quit looking like they are being deceptive on healthcare and call it like it is. All people in a great democracy deserve to have their health safeguarded. Period.
I think that Nancy Pelosi needs to start to realize that it is time to listen to what the American people want. Just another goverment involvement which is not needed or wanted. Just reference the stimulus package where the govt intervened. Does anyone believe for one moment that it was successful? Is anyone questioning the enormous deficit and the payback that our children & grandchildren will be responsible for. Does anyone care that many of the politicians that were a part of the downfall in this country are still in office or thru the new administration brought back in to service their country. Are these the same people that were a contributing factor to the loss of 401's. Should we trust these people? The American people always took pride in their country and should, this country offered them freedom, freedom to speak and voice their opinion and recognize that the Constitution of this country is something to be proud of.
You know, if people don't want the public option, they won't buy it. It won't be cheaper than private insurance.
I suggest:
Income of 0-$40,000 – insurance cost no more than ~20% of their income (after they pay at least $100 a month).
(government should subsidize the additional cost over 20% of their net income). If someone can't earn $100 a month to pay for this, they need to be institutionalized (I know, that will cost ~$50,000 a year per person, but what else can we do for them?).
Insurance should only be given to US citizens. Illegal Aliens (if visa has expired or if they have no visa) should receive minimal care and then be deported to their home country. If no home country is identified, I don't know what to do.
people making over $40,000 should be offered the government plan, but the plan should be priced 10% higher than the lowest cost comparable private insurance.
No more Gov't Insuance programs.
Do some good solid research before you let this happen !
So what happens when you're unemployed, no money coming in and you can't pay your mandatory government heath care premiums?
I guess it would be like not paying the IRS, you face property confiscation or go to jail.
Good. Its time. If Brittain could do it during the 40's when they were bankrupt, we can do it now. Better now than later. If we wait, the Republicans will have a chance to get back into power to ruin us all over again.
Do it now.
Health care is not a right and not something that the government should cover!
For those afraid of health care rationing. If you can afford it, no one is going to be able to ration it. I don't understand this. Poor people should have rationed health care. Those with the money can by the supplemental insurance to get past the minimal health insurance the government will offer. There is nothing wrong with a public plan, make people who use it pay. It should be made more expensive than a private plan so it will pay for itself and the subsidies to the poor. Let the liberals go into the public plan and pay the higher rates. They'll pay the higher rates to show their support, even if it means lower quality health care for them. So, I vote for a public plan, and liberals will go into it, and conservatives will keep their health insurance, and once the liberals are out of private insurance it will be cheaper, because liberals are less healthy than conservatives.
@MARLENE -
Wrong, your statement is not true....unless 100% of those polled were unemployed, illegals....or Lukeisha with her 15 kids.....Are you taking data-tampering lessons from the liberal media?
Democrats don't respect you or your wishes, sister.....you need to take off those rose-colored glasses and think for yourself.
Obivously, by the mere actions of ABC and the other lib media, the censorship of anything healthcare will lead to something being signed....what they cannot prevent or censor is the draining of your paycheck through taxation...
Pelosi should be fired. No government health care.
Tax and Spend, Tax and Spend, Tax and Spend, the liberals will never learn.
Nancy keep showing your true colors. It will not be long until you overeach like the republicans and we send you home for good.
You go and continue to make me proud as a woman and Democrat!
reason it out June 18th, 2009 3:28 pm ET
. . . And I assume that, in the name of governmental transparency, we will be given those details in time to have public discussion of the plan before it is voted on by Congress.
---------
Nice assumption. Really think it will happen? Obama will have his ABC infomercial with "canned" administration/ABC questions - and voila! - there's your "public" discussion.
@ phoenix86
We will never have a single payer system in this country. It's impossible to do. Stay off the Fixed News Channel.
Yes indeed please allow the puplic to voice their appionons on health care now and forever ide say for it's for them and all of us
The CBO estimate is a "SEPERATE SUBJECT"?
Has the botox you've sand-blasted into your face bled all the way through to your skull and poisoned your cognitive capacities, Pelosi? This is like the car salesman who says, "this car's unreasonableprice is a seperate subject–I mean, look, it comes with fuzzy dice."
Well, for a lady who thinks she can accuse the CIA of lying to her and not expect repercussions, I guess this sort of misguided doublespeak is par for the course.
I do not understand the people that keeps saying "we cannot afford public health care" .When I see how much money America spends on projects outside of the US and then say they cannot afford to spend on their own citizens it makes my blood boil. I know it is important to help other countries but shouldn't you help the citizen of your own country first? After all the money you are spending is coming from the tax paid by them.
The Republican in public office is okay with government health insurance with it is covering them but they are against it for the rest of the country. If they are so against government health insurance why don't they refuse the one they are currently getting and buy their own from a private company.
My question is: How much is this going cost the middle class taxpayer ?Seeing that as a legal us citizen we pay for every illegal person in this country healthcare costs. It's sad that as a legal us citizen, that my wife and I have to pay for healthcare for someone, who isn't even in this country legally. What are you going to allow these illegal persons next? Well lets see: they have our jobs, oh and maybe they would like me to hand over my home next. Would that be enough? Geez maybe I should hand over my first born too. No wonder this country is so messed up. We are so busy taking care of other countries problems and not taking care of the legal citizens of this country.
Yes thank you for the option and that's what it is, an option. Pass it already.
If the House Democrats gave specifics of how to pay for this plan, would anyone in the House (or Senate or Bo Bo) even read it before voting for it? History shows not.
It's like someone going to buy a car without knowing what it costs, thinking "I don't care what it costs, I don't have to pay for it".
I wonder if plastic face uses HER credit cards in the same way she spends money that belong to the people.
I am amazed at the idiocy I see from this puppet Pew-losi. The government ALREADY has a government run health care system in place and it is failing! Its called Medicare! If they are so serious about taking option away from people, then just sign EVERYONE up for Medicare! What's the problem? Its not rocket science, people...
I consider myself a liberal and am an avid Obama supporter. However, I must say this: There seems to be an option that is being overlooked. And it's not just health care, its jobs and housing too. This may sound flippant, but think about it; this country has a system that allows anyone, of appropriate age and health, to have a decent paying job, free housing, and free health care for themselves and their families. It's called the military.
Wanna fix healthcare? Eliminate lawsuits against doctors. Do you know how much liability insurance costs?
pelosi, shove a sock in your mouth and leave it there, a waste of tax money
To calm all those that are panicking about government single payer program even though it is probably the only way we will overt financial collapse. Single payer should be implemented much like Bush's tax breaks. Have a 8 year length moritorium or so, until it expires then sell it back to the insurance companies to gouge us again. Thus giving the American people an opportunity to measure it's real worth.
how can we beleive what you say you lying liberal (pelosi)
I must be reading the wrong Declaration of Independence. It clearly states that you have the right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, a bailout if you are a member of the UAW, education paid for by the govt., a house, "cash for clunkers" and healthcare. My goodness, here I was thinking that in the United States the govt wasn't involved in our daily lives...
@ Proud DHS Radical, who asked "So what happens when you're unemployed, no money coming in and you can't pay your mandatory government heath care premiums?"
Wow. I'll give you guys one thing: you're experts at setting up straw men in an attempt to scare people.