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Many members of the U.S. House of Representatives have stated that Health Care Reform will not pass the House without a public option included in the reform while there is evidence many others possess this sentiment but have yet to express it publicly.

John Conyers (D-MI) in support of a government-run health insurance plan to compete with private insurers said:

“If we don’t have a strong public option, the bill will never get out of the House,” Conyers said during a Monday night town hall meeting on hate crimes legislation, which Conyers sponsored.

Conyers comments echo the sentiments of Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY), who suggested last month that abandoning a public option could cost up to 100 Democratic votes in the House.

The President does seem like he’s moving away from the public plan, and if he does, he’s not going to pass a bill. Because there are just too many people in Washington who believe that the public plan was the only way that you effectively bring some downward pressure on prices, and if he says well we’re not going to have that, then I’m not really quite sure what we’re dong here.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said that the plan will be included in whatever bill is voted on in the House. “There is strong support in the House for a public option,” she said, though she did not demand that the administration express support for the idea.

Representatives Raul Grijalva (D-Z), Lynn Woolsey (D-CA) and Barbara Lee (D-CA) stated in a letter written to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who has said that a public plan is “not the essential element” of comprehensive reform:

To take the public option off the table would be a grave error; passage in the House of Representatives depends upon inclusion of it

Some Democrat Senators have joined in. Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-WV) said that a public option, as the plan has become known, is “a must.” Sen. Russell Feingold (D-WI) said:

without a public option, I don’t see how we will bring real change to a system that has made good health care a privilege for those who can afford it.

The White House should take the Democrats above at their word rather than focusing on getting support from the Republicans who have shown through their words and actions that defeating ANY meaningful reform seems to be their utmost priority.

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-WI) has went as far as calling a public option “slavery” during one of her delusional rants at a “personal legislative briefing” by the Golden (Colorado)-based Independence Institute, which bills itself as a “free market think tank.”.

What we have to do today is make a covenant, to slit our wrists, be blood brothers on this thing. This will not pass. We will do whatever it takes to make sure this doesn’t pass.

At a town hall meeting  Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) told Chickasha Oklahoma residents he does not need to read the 1,000 page health care reform bill, he will simply vote against it.

I don’t have to read it, or know what’s in it. I’m going to oppose it anyways… People are not buying these concepts that are completely foreign to America… We’re almost reaching a revolution in this country.

Even the most coveted Republican voice by the White House has thrown Health Care Reform under the bus. Sen. Chuck Grassley(R-IA), noted for his “Death Panel” non(wink wink) endorsement, said:

… they have a miserably poor health care bill that’s not being received well by the people. They’ve done a very good job at diverting attention and they’re intellectually dishonest when they say it.

Needless to say, the Republicans are simply looking to derail the Obama Administration to try and gain seats in the 2010 election cycle and defeating Health Care Reform is perceived way to this end.

Sen. Jim DeMint expressed the Republican reason in the nutshell when he bragged:

If we’re able to stop Obama on this it will be his Waterloo. It will break him.

Don’t let the Republicans use our health care to win a pissing contest!