We hear in this Sunday's first reading that when Joshua questioned the religious loyalties of his fellow Israelites, they responded, "Far be it from us to forsake the Lord." President Barack Obama's recent signals that he would be willing to forsake a "public option" on healthcare insurance for the sake of bipartisan support has led to an outcry among the president's more liberal supporters.

Administration officials insisted that they have not shied away from their support for a public option to compete with private insurance companies, an idea they said Obama still prefers to see in a final bill.

"I don't understand why the left of the left has decided that this is their Waterloo," said a senior White House adviser. "We've gotten to this point where healthcare on the left is determined by the breadth of the public option. I don't understand how that has become the measure of whether what we achieve is healthcare reform."

When the Obama campaign first crafted its healthcare proposal, the creation of a government-sponsored insurance option "was not the most important thing," said David Cutler, a Harvard University economics professor and campaign adviser on healthcare issues. Obama, like Cutler, embraced the concept because it would afford consumers more options, Cutler said.

But while the idea has given conservatives an opening to attack Obama for allegedly supporting government-run healthcare, "to the left it's become this unholy grail" without which any reforms would be inadequate, Cutler said.

In a further ratcheting of tensions in a highly charged debate, some Democratic leaders Tuesday accused Republicans of reflexively opposing healthcare reforms in an attempt to score political points against the Obama administration. "The Republican leadership," said White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, "has made a strategic decision that defeating President Obama's healthcare proposal is more important for their political goals than solving the health insurance problems that Americans face every day."

Those leaders say the time for bipartisanship has passed and they now intend to pour their energy into mustering sufficient Democratic votes for the proposals.

Source: Articles by Michael D. Shear and Ceci Connolly for the Washington Post and Carl Hulse
and Jeff Zeleny for the New York Times