Talk Radio News Service: News, Politics, Media

By Laura Woodhead - Talk Radio News Service

The public option is still on the table Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Tuesday. Speaking at the US Administration on Aging's annual Senior Medicare Patrol (SMP) conference, Secretary Sebelius said that her comment Sunday that the public option was "not an essential element" of health care reform, was misrepresented by the media.

"All I can tell you is that Sunday must have been a very slow news day, because here's the bottom line: absolutely nothing has changed," she said. "We continue to support the public option that will help lower costs, give American consumers more choice and keep private insurers honest."

The Secretary went on to address the scare tactics that she said opponents of health care reform were using in order to frighten the elderly into not supporting the administrations' proposed changes.

"Lots of information has been circulated causing fear among some seniors about cutting valuable medicare services or rationing care," Sebelius said. "Nothing could be further from the truth."

The comments came at the end of the Secretary's speech on how the administration is taking steps to tackle Medicare fraud. In any system were there was over $600 billion circulating, "you know that there are people around who want to get their mitts on the cash" Sebelius said. Efforts by the SMP would help "save medicare dollars" and cut waste within the health care system but it was reform that would make the real difference.

"Absent health care reform, doctors providing medicare are scheduled to be cut 21%," she warned. "You talk about losing your doctor. That will happen [unless we pass reform]."