Pelosi Reiterates Commitment to Strong Public Plan

From House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) weekly press conference, as reported by Roll Call (subscription):

Pelosi made clear Thursday that some version of the program — “It may not be called ‘public option,’ but it will be a level playing field,” she said — is the price of admission for health care reform in her chamber. “We will have a public option in the House that will be real,” she said. “What’s not real is no use doing.”

The statement is reference to several proposals floating around the Senate that would water down the government-backed plan, either by delaying its arrival with coverage and cost triggers, or by creating a co-op arrangement that would result in smaller patient pools, thereby lessening the buying power (and increasing premiums) of the alternative-coverage option.