Pelosi: “There’s no way I can pass a bill in the House of Representatives without a public option”

From Bloomberg.com:

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she won’t be able to pass health-care legislation in her chamber if the measure doesn’t include a government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurers.

“There’s no way I can pass a bill in the House of Representatives without a public option,” Pelosi, a California Democrat, said at a press conference in San Francisco today.

The idea, a central component of President Barack Obama’s effort to overhaul the nation’s health-care system, has emerged as a flash point in his party. Suggestions by administration officials in recent days that the White House might be willing to give up on the public plan drew protests from some House Democrats.

Obama today reiterated his support for the proposal.

“If we have a public option in there it will help keep insurance companies honest,” he told a group of community volunteers in Washington.

Not with 77% of Americans in favor of a public option as a choice, with emphasis on that word "choice", as the Huffington Post reports:

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.

Keep talking to your friends, family, coworkers and neighbors who aren't clear on what President Obama's health care/insurance reform plan does and does not include and mean because it works:

Read a description of the president's health care plan, 51 percent of Survey USA respondents said they "favored" the approach, while 43 percent opposed it. In the NBC poll, 53 percent of respondents said they favored the president's plan, 43 percent said they opposed it.

And keep those cards and letters and telephone calls on their way to congress, the senate and the White House. Let them know where we stand and that we've got their backs.
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