(An update from yesterday; progressives need to keep up the pressure. You might also be interested in putting your name in a TV ad for the public option that’s being run by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee PAC. Edited for space. – promoted by Brian Leubitz)

In response to Health Care for America Now’s posting and petition and MoveOn’s advertisement wondering why Senator Feinstein is naysaying on health care in the face of huge momentum for real reform, Feinstein’s office emailed the following statement to TPM and other news outlets:

I support:

1) Reducing costs and expanding coverage

2) Prohibiting the denial of insurance because of pre-existing conditions

3) Moving toward either a non-profit model of medical insurance or to one where premium costs can be controlled, either through competition in a public or cooperative model or through a regulated authority.

4) Assuring the financial survival of Medicare, because it is slated to run out of money in 2017.

5) Preventing the transfer of Medicaid costs to states, which could result in billions of dollars of additional loss to the State of California.

6) Establishing means testing for programs like Medicare Part D, which pays for prescription drugs

Clearly, the individual mandate – and how it is funded – is the critical, and as yet unanswered, question.

Huh? Let’s look at this more closely over the flip.

Feinstein wants to:

• Control costs
• Expand coverage
• Stop insurance industry bad practices
• Move towards non-profit insurance
• Save Medicare and Medicaid
• And support comparative effectiveness research

With the exception of that last point, all of the outcomes Senator Feinstein wants to see from reform are things that are most easily accomplished – indeed, perhaps can only be accomplished – with robust health reform that includes a public health insurance option.

Feinstein wants to control costs? The Commonwealth Fund estimates a health reform bill with a public health insurance option will save an extra $2 trillion over 11 years.

Feinstein wants to expand coverage? Jacob Hacker argues [pdf] that the public health insurance option in conjunction with reform is the way to best provide expanded and quality coverage, while preserving choice.

Feinstein wants to stop insurance industry abuses? Then she’ll have to help pass a law that mandates these things, because the insurance industry will never voluntarily accept these concessions, as their testimony before Congress made abundantly clear.

And Feinstein wants to save Medicare and Medicaid? Well, the only way to do that is to aggressively control costs, as Budget Director Peter Orszag points out, is to reform health care in a real way.

In short, if Senator Feinstein wants to achieve any of the goals she says she wants to achieve, she’s going to need to support robust health reform, including the choice of a public health insurance option.

And that fact makes her two statements on the issue all the more puzzling. Why, in the face of huge momentum for health reform, did Feinstein go on national television and say some particularly unhelpful things like, “I don’t know that [President Obama] has the votes right now,” a comment designed to give comfort to the enemies of health reform? And why did she then turn around and say she’s for all kinds of goals that can only be accomplished with reform?

It doesn’t make sense, it’s contradictory, and it still leaves Feinstein in the naysayer camp. So keep calling her office at (202) 224-3841 and sign the petition and ask her to just come out and say it, “I’m with the President and commit to using all my muscle to pass real health care reform this year, including a choice of a public health insurance option, to achieve the goals I’ve laid out for our health care system.”

I’ll say it once again: Senator Feinstein can either make history, or stand in the way.

(also posted at the NOW blog)

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