Dingell, Grijalva, Sherrod Brown all OK with the Speech

[Frank Booth]

On a conference call with reporters just now, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) said that Obama's decision to adopt Sen. Max Baucus' $900 billion financing scheme was a "major concession," but gave Obama high marks for his statement on the public option.

"He wants to always be open to ideas...but he sets his standard. And the standard is it's gotta offer better choice... it's got to discipline insurance companies... and it's got to bring prices down," Brown said in response to a question from TPMDC. "The other options don't even come close to doing it."

Brown's statement amounts to a belief that Obama has implied a demand for a public option.

More: http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/09/brown-obama-implicitly-demanded-a-public-option.php?ref=fpb

Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) is a single-payer supporter, and no parser of words, but he tells me he thinks President Obama did a superb job tonight, and increased the chances that a public option will survive the legislative process. . . .

"I think a). he was clear enough and b). he was strong enough because he made it plain that the public option was the way to create an absolutely necessary thing for the bill to succeed--and that is competition."

More: http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/09/dingell-obama-made-the-public-option-more-viable-with-this-speech.php?ref=fpb

Grijalva's bar was admittedly pretty low: "The fact that the public plan was not thrown under the bus keeps our expectations that we'll be able to work with at least the House leadership to pass a strong public plan," Grijalva said.

"If he would have mentioned nothing of a public role in health care it would have made our effort much, much more difficult," Grijalva added. "Going in we really didn't know what the President would do."

As I reported earlier today, a planned meeting between House liberals and Obama scheduled for yesterday never happened

Noted Grijalva: "The fact that he didn't mention triggers is encouraging. the fact that he didn't mention co-ops is encouraging." (The President did not use either the word trigger or the word co-op, but he did allude to both policy proposals)

More: http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/09/grijalva-were-glad-obama-didnt-throw-the-public.php