Research

That’s Speaker Pelosi’s idea of health care reform. She has made no secret of the fact that she, like her fellow House progressives, wants a “robust public option,” one of the most liberal versions of government-run health insurance. In fact, the most liberal House Democrats claim they’ve already compromised because they’d rather have a “single-payer system,” a complete government takeover of health care.

But this morning, Politico’s “Huddle” reported the House bill that was introduced yesterday isn’t going to be the end-all-be-all of health care reform for Pelosi:

‘On any given day, success that upsets business as usual in Washington can be perishable. I don’t want to get too bogged down,’ Pelosi told POLITICO in an interview Thursday afternoon. ‘We are not passing a bill, shutting the door, turning out the lights and walking away. We will have other legislation.’

What’s next? A single-payer system? The author of the public option, Jacob Hacker admitted that government-run health insurance would just be the start to a path towards a complete government takeover of health care. He isn’t alone in thinking that. Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) said “a good public option… could lead to single payer,” and Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) told single-payer supporters that insurance companies have “every reason to be frightened.”

Obama knows it too. In 2003, he proudly supported a single-payer system but said “we may not get there immediately.” So if Obama says he is determined to be the last President to take up government-run health care, but he knows a single-payer system won’t come immediately, is the big-government agenda he’s trying push now a Trojan Horse for an even bigger-government agenda for the rest of his term? Is he trying to wean Americans onto a complete government takeover of health care? No wonder Americans want to stop his experiments now.