WASHINGTON — The White House fell into full retreat yesterday from its earlier surrender of Democratic plans for a massive new government-run insurance agency as part of its health-care reform bid.
The Obama administration now says it remains fully behind the idea of a “public option” for government-run insurance, despite clear signals over the weekend from top officials that the public option is not a deal-breaker and is just a “sliver” of the overall reforms it seeks.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs blamed the media for misunderstanding the administration’s support.
“The administration’s position is unchanged,” Gibbs insisted in a testy exchange yesterday during which he handed one reporter exact quotes to read from previous speeches.
“The president prefers the public option as a way of doing that,” he said. “If others have ideas, we’re open to those ideas and willing to listen to those details. That’s what the president has said for months.”
The public-health option would be a federally run health-insurance program, similar to Medicare or Medicaid, that would provide insurance to millions of low-income and uninsured Americans. Supporters believe it would compete with private insurers, forcing them to lower prices.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who started the whole controversy when she seemed to ditch the public option during an interview Sunday, also insisted yesterday that there has been no change whatsoever in the administration’s policy on the public insurance program.
“All I can tell you is that Sunday must have been a very slow news day, because here’s the bottom line: Absolutely nothing has changed,” she said in a speech about Medicare.
“We continue to support the public option that will help lower costs, give American consumers more choice, and keep private insurers honest.”
Asked about the public program on CNN Sunday, Sebelius said, “I think what’s important is choice and competition, and I’m convinced that at the end of the day, the plan will have both of those — but that is not the essential element.”
President Obama similarly belittled the government program in a town-hall meeting Saturday.
“The public option, whether we have it or we don’t have it, is not the entirety of health-care reform,” he said. “This is just one sliver of it, one aspect of it.”
Liberals in Congress and elsewhere are deeply disturbed.
Left-leaning leaders in Congress wrote Sebelius a letter yesterday explaining that 60 Democratic members — likely enough to kill any health bill — would not support legislation that does not include a public option.
“To take the public option off the table would be a grave error; passage in the House of Representatives depends upon inclusion of it,” they wrote.
Public polling, meanwhile, shows mass erosion of support for even greater government involvement in health care.
This week, 47 percent oppose the public plan, according to a new NBC poll, up 3 points from 44 percent last week.
Only 43 percent support the public option now, down 3 points from last week.
churt@nypost.com