Thread: Is the Public Option Making a Comeback?

Is the public option making a comeback?

Sen. Michael Bennet's effort to revive the public option in the reconciliation process is gaining steam, with almost 20 senators signing on to the idea. Among them are Dianne Feinstein and Chuck Schumer, who are not, shall we say, possessed of a whimsical or quixotic temperament.

Of course, you don't need almost 20 senators. You need 51, or more. And complicating that project is that the question here is not simply "public option: yes or no?" It's whether you want to jam a public option into a bill that Senate Democrats already passed without a public option. Not only are you throwing out any hope of appearing even slightly bipartisan, but you're also increasing internal dissension and adding unpredictability into a process that's collapsed into chaos already.

But there's an upside, and it's not just that the public option is good policy. The public option is also popular policy. Popular with the country in general, and popular among liberals in particular. Adding the public option into the legislation would give them something to fight for, and something to be excited about.

That matters. If you believe, as most people do, that midterm elections are largely about base mobilization, and that Scott Brown's victory was in part assured by demoralized Democrats who didn't feel much affection for either Martha Coakley or the Democrats in Washington, this may be the party's last, best hope to give its passionate supporters the win that would reinvigorate them for 2010. "I don't think that was the original strategy behind signing this letter," one Senate aide told me. "But that may be the strategy we fall backwards into."

For all that, I'd still bet against the public option. For one thing, there's sharp resistance to this idea in the White House. The administration has just spent weeks rebranding itself as a bipartisan outpost in a sea of bickering hacks. Resuscitating the most controversial element of the bill and running it through reconciliation looks less like reaching out and more like delivering a hard left cross to the opposition.

One way or another, however, Senate Democrats and the White House need to choose their path and communicate it clearly. If Democrats want to use the public option to reinvigorate their base and attack the insurers and push this bill over the finish line in a final blaze of populist fury, more power to them. If they decide that the process is fragile and Americans want bipartisanship and this is a bad time to introduce uncertainty into chaos, that makes sense, too.

But it would be murder to leave the public option hanging in the middle of the process with too few votes to pass, too many supporters to kill, and enough bitter controversy that Republicans can just hammer away at Democrats forever and ever and ever. A zombie public option debate could well drag health-care reform into the grave as well.

Photo credit: By Manuel Balce Ceneta/Associated Press

By Ezra Klein | February 18, 2010; 4:36 PM ET

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-k ... ing_a.html

link(s) within the original are available at the source link above

February 18, 2010

THE PUBLIC OPTION FINDS SOME FRIENDS.... It started as a reasonable question: if the Senate is going to have to take one last shot at health care reform, this time through reconciliation, why not bring back the public option? After all, if the public option was scrapped in order to get 60 votes, and legislation considered under reconciliation can pass with 50 votes, why not go back to the measures the Democratic mainstream wanted in the first place?

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC), just this week, got to work on this, and 48 hours ago, Sens. Mike Bennet (D-Colo.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) sent a letter to the leadership. The four voiced their "strong support" for the reform bill approved in December by the Senate, but said bringing back the public option would "improve both its substance and the public's perception of" the final bill.

Yesterday, four supporters became six. Six became eight. A couple of senators signed on here, a few more there. By late morning today, the total reached 16. Soon after, Chuck Schumer, a member of the party leadership, became #17, and added some heft to the entire effort.

Sen. Charles Schumer (N.Y.), the third-ranking Democrat in the Senate, is backing the effort. Schumer's re-entry into the public option fight gives it a major boost. Schumer, as head of the party's campaign efforts in 2006 and 2008, elected one in six of those now in the caucus and is trusted for his political judgment. If Schumer thinks the public option effort is a political winner, his colleagues will take note.

Schumer made his announcement in a message to his supporters, obtained by HuffPost.

"This is far from a done deal," Schumer wrote, "but it's an opportunity to break through the obstructionism Republicans have pushed for the past year."

Given Schumer's role in the caucus, his signature on the letter will not only get other Democrats' attention, but also likely get additional caucus members to sign on.

For what it's worth, I'm not inclined to get my hopes up, despite my support for the public option, in part because I've been let down before. In fact, it's possible this push to make reform more progressive now is intended to serve as a counter-weight to any additional compromise efforts being considered in advance of next week's summit.

And that's not the only caveat. Having 17 Dems sign on in just two days is impressive, but 50 is still quite a ways off. For that matter, even if the Senate could approve a final bill through reconciliation with a public option, it would still need 218 votes in the House -- and just because it barely passed the House in November with a public option doesn't mean that level of support is still there. More than likely, the support is lower, and some of the Dems who voted against the bill before would need to switch in order to assure final passage.

Among Americans, the public option has long been one of the most popular ideas in the entire reform debate. Among lawmakers, it remains one of the most contentious elements of reform. For policymakers trying to figure out how to get this done, it would be, shall we say, out of character for them to start putting back in provisions that they perceive as excessively controversial. Indeed, given that reform's future is already in a precarious state, it's that much more difficult to imagine Dems taking a chance on a renewed debate over an idea most lawmakers thought they'd put behind them.

And yet, I also wouldn't have expected 17 senators to push this during the recess. If this number can grow some more -- say, to the 40 to 45 range -- by early Saturday, it might start to seem almost plausible.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archiv ... 022475.php

This idea is just a bad dream that won't go away. I'll be watching CLOSELY anyone who supports bringing back this dead garbage!

mong Americans, the public option has long been one of the most popular ideas in the entire reform debate.

Popular compared to what???? According to Rasmussen's latest poll 65% of likely voters think Congress should start over, from scratch, on Health Care Reform. Over 54% of voters think Congress should wait until the mid-term elections are over before passing any kind of health care reform bill.

Do the math. The US government cannot afford Medicare and Medicaid. How in the world could we afford an expanded program when the current one is bankrupt. Only way possible is draconian cuts in existing programs, and minimal coverage for the expanded program.

Medicare was LBJ's pipe dream, as Social Security was FDR's. Those dreams have turned into fiscal nightmares. We don't need to add Obama's nightmare program to the show list.