Rahm Emanuel

By Miles Mogulescu It appears to be part of a Democratic "K Street Strategy" engineered by Rahm Emanuel with the consent of Barack Obama in which concessions are made to powerful special intersts, like health insurance companies and drug companies, in exchange for campaign cash for Democrats. Even Republ...

By D. Brad Wright It's quite clear that Obama favors the public option, but he's now going to take a backseat in the debate while Congress works to reach a compromise. Is that really how one stands up for what they believe is right? It'd be one thing if Obama didn't claim the public option was a priority. Then we c...

By Earl Ofari Hutchinson The elimination of the public option, though, sealed the deal. Obama could pay lip service to the public option but not fight for it. The lip service was important solely to keep labor unions, progressives, and liberal Democrats in tow. They were the ones who turned the presidential campaig...

By Melissa McEwan In multiple TV appearances on Sunday, the White House Chief of Staff reiterated that the public option is not mandatory.

By Roger Hickey Harry Reid and Max Baucus (and the White House) should step up to the plate and borrow the strongest parts of the HELP bill to write the final Senate health reform legislation.  If they don’t, the US House of Representatives, led by Nancy Pelosi and the Progressive Caucus, will force them to...

By The Huffington Post News Editors WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama still believes a government-run health care option would best meet his reform goals but is not demanding that it be part of overhaul legislation, White House advisers said Sunday. White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, who is deeply involved with co...

By Michael Brenner After Netanyahu's rejection of the US proposal to do something on the settlement issue, Obama rushed to say that it isn't so important after all, like 'public option' was redefined as "just a sliver" of the overall package. Obama's peace initiative on Palestine suffered a stunning, perh...

By The Huffington Post News Team Schumer is hardly the first Democrat to call on progressive groups to stop targeting members of the party. White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel reportedly called the advertisements run against Baucus and other conservative Democrats "f---ing stupid" during a closed-door meeting.

By Mark Murray From NBC's Mark MurrayThis morning, the Wall Street Journal quoted White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel saying that he's flexible about having a public/government option in any health-care bill. "The goal is to have a means and a mechanism to keep the private insurers honest," he told...

By dandelionsalad However, Congressional Republicans and “moderate/centrist/Blue Dog” Democrats such as Max Baucus (recipient of millions in health care industry campaign contributions) and Kent Conrad oppose a public option, let alone the one system that would give all Americans adequate health...

By Howard Martin(howmartin@msn.com) Greg Sargent:A key Democratic Senator who met with Rahm Emanuel last night is denying an explosive report saying Emanuel privately signaled the White House’s willingness to take the public option off the table to get health care reform done.A spokesperson for Senator Kent Conrad tells...