Can the White House now grasp this? In fact read this diary from Daily Kos and the utter frustration many have had from the messaging from this White House, which has been atrocious.
The disconnect is strictly from the D.C. Congress and the American Public. If D.C. Democrats, at this time just FORGET THE REPUBLICANS, can not grasp this and do not pass a public option, then D.C. Democrats and the Obama White House are in trouble for 2010 going forward.
The American public did not vote Democrats and Obama into office for all of THIS. Utter confusion, no message, no bill, side stepping the issue, we did not vote for this.
Democrats and President Obama, GET IT TOGETHER.
More than three out of every four Americans feel it is important to have a "choice" between a government-run health care insurance option and private coverage, according to a public opinion poll released on Thursday.
A new study by SurveyUSA puts support for a public option at a robust 77 percent, one percentage point higher than where it stood in June.
But the numbers tell another story, as well.
Earlier in the week, after pollsters for NBC dropped the word "choice" from their question on a public option, they found that only 43 percent of the public were in favor of "creating a public health care plan administered by the federal government that would compete directly with private health insurance companies."
Opponents of the president's agenda jumped on the findings as evidence that backing for the public option was dropping. Proponents responded by arguing that NBC's tinkering with the language of the question (which it had also done in its July survey) had contributed to the drop in favorability for a public plan.
SurveyUSA's poll, which was commissioned by the progressive group MoveOn.org, a proponent of the public plan, gives credence to those critiques. While arguments about what type of language best describe the public option persist --"choice" is considered a trigger word that everyone naturally supports -- it seems clear that the framing of the provision goes a long way toward determining its popularity.
In asking its question SurveyUSA used the same exact words that NBC/Wall Street Journal had used when conducting its June 2009 survey. That one that found 76 percent approval for the public option: "In any health care proposal, how important do you feel it is to give people a choice of both a public plan administered by the federal government and a private plan for their health insurance--extremely important, quite important, not that important, or not at all important?" read more here...
So, what is all this mumbo-jumbo about from the Democrats? No one should be shocked that they will have to go this alone, without the Republican support.
Again, many hands are wringing, many are waiting and watching for this White House and Democrats to do the right thing.
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