Mary Landrieu: I Think When People Hear 'Public Option' They Hear 'Free Health Care'
By Heather Thursday Oct 15, 2009 10:00am
This has to be one of the more infuriating things to come out of one of these Conserva-Dems mouths in a long time. Do you think you could be a little more insulting to the American public Sen. Landrieu? Of course both David Shuster and Tamryn Hall waited until after Landrieu got off the air to question whether what she was saying was complete B.S. or not. That's not included in the above clip but here's my beef with the two of them. While they still had her there, they should have asked her how lining the pockets of insurance industry CEO's and their stock holders is doing anything to help small business or the general public that isn't fortunate enough to have her health care plan paid for by our tax dollars.
And nobody thinks that having a public option is going to be "free". Landrieu apparently pulled that talking point out of the land called her butt, since that's the first time I've heard someone use it. That or some health insurance lobbyist fed it to her and we're going to hear more of the same from Landrieu and the rest of her fellow Corporate-crats as this debate goes on.
Hall: I want to talk about the public option. You just heard Gov. Dean and he said “What’s the point in having a sixty vote majority in the Senate if you can’t get the public option passed?” “That is health care reform, not insurance reform and that is what the American people want.” Where do you stand? I know that you’ve been under a lot of pressure about your opinions on public option, but where do you stand now after we saw new numbers come out and it passed in the Senate Finance Committee yesterday, without the public option in that committee?
Landrieu: Well first of all Gov. Dean has been a wonderful leader and he is a great guy and a wonderful American, seriously. I just don’t agree with him on his statement that unless you have a public option you can’t have real reform. And I don’t agree that if you’re not for a public option you’re for insurance companies, you know, scamming tax payers…um…or consumers. I’m not for either. I wish it was as simple, but it’s not.
The bottom line is we want choice and competition and a reformed market place. I don’t believe as a Democrat and I’m proud to say this as a Democrat, I believe in the private sector. I don’t believe in the government running every program and for everybody. I believe in public/private partnerships.
Hall: Do you believe in the polling that says that the American people want a public option? Do you believe in that desire from the folks that you and all of the others represent that say that they want a public option to happen to help offset these costs?
Landrieu: I think when people hear public option they hear free health care. Everybody wants free health care. Everybody wants health care they don’t have to pay for. The problem is that we as governments and business have to pick up the tab and as individuals. So I’m not at all surprised that the public option has been sold as free health care, but there is no free lunch and it’s costing us 16% of the gross national product and it’s driving businesses out of business.
So I wish it was as simple as saying you can have a public option and everything’s going to be great or not. The fact it’s more complicated than that and it’s been a very I think unfortunate debate between public option and not public. We should be thinking about public/private partnerships and cost containment.
Sen. Landrieu, cost containment would mean putting a stop to your campaign donors taking 30% for moving our money around and making the bankers happy while they deny their customers the coverage they thought they paid for.
