Obama to Focus Next on Day Care Reform

After months of limited progress with health care reform, President Obama announced today that he will next focus on getting the passage of a day care reform bill.

“There needs to be a public option within the day care system,” said Obama.  “If I had the chance to remake the system from scratch, I’d prefer to have a ’single sitter’ type of system where everyone pays into a government pool for day care selection.  But we can’t do that now.  So we have to find a better solution for the millions of families out there not covered by private day care.  They are forced to send their children to unlicensed relatives or stay home with them.   And are these parents trained to be day care providers themselves?  No, they are not.  We don’t expect people to provide their own health care by giving themselves an appendectomy, so why would we expect them to take care of their own children?  Day care reform must happen now, and it must include a public option.  You can keep your own qualified day care if you wish, so all we’re saying is that those not covered by a day care plan should have the option to use a government day care plan.  This will also help provide competition for those greedy day care providers who make hundreds of dollars each month for every child under their care.”

Republicans immediately denounced the plan and called the public option a socialist agenda.  Sarah Palin suggested the plan might result in “orphan panels” where a government official would get to decide which children would get child care and which would become orphans based on a lack of resources.  Nancy Pelosi’s office also defended criticism that the bill under consideration in Congress would fund abortions for mothers to encourage them not to burden the day care system.  “This is only an issue because George Bush refused to focus on day care while in office,” said a Pelosi staff member.  “Day care is a human right, not a priveledge.”