So did Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius get taken to the wood shed on the White House grounds for remarks she made Sunday that seemed to imply the Obama administration is ready to ditch the public option in the proposed health care overhaul?
Administration officials on Tuesday stuck to their contention there's been no change in White House policy, and that Sebelius was simply articulating a longstanding desire for any overhaul to bring choice and competition in private insurance markets.
Press secretary Robert Gibbs instead attributed any misunderstanding to media reports that overinterpreted the ex-Kansas governor's remarks, asserting "we've been boringly consistent" on the public option.
Privately, vote counters inside and outside the administration acknowledge the White House doesn't yet have a simple majority of 51 votes in the Senate for the government-run option -- and that pushback at congressional town hall meetings this month are liikely to make risk-averse lawmakers even more leery about voting for anything resembling a big government solution.
But was Sebelius subtly signalling to liberal Democrats who back the public option that it's time to cosider politically expedient compromises?
"If it was a signal, it was a dog whistle we started blowing three months ago," Gibbs said. He said Obama's prefers any overhaul to contain a public plan. But he added "we're certainly happy to look at" other ideas that might inject competition into a market "largely closed to choice and competition."
Update: No effort to keep Sebelius out of the spotlight. She'll join Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and HHS Health Information Coordinator David Blumenthal in Chicago on Thursday to discuss the health system with doctors, nurses, and hospital administrators at Mt. Sinai Hospital.
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