Democrats sacrifice the ‘public option’

What happened

Senate Democratic leaders scrambled to assemble a 60-vote coalition for health-care reform this weak, jettisoning hard-won compromises on a “public option” to private insurance in an effort to pass a bill before Christmas. With little prospect of getting even a single Republican vote, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid sought to hold liberal support while trying to reel in conservative Democrat Ben Nelson of Nebraska and independent Joe Lieberman of Connecticut. Opposition from Lieberman unraveled a compromise which had been devised late last week as a substitute for the abandoned public option government insurance provision. The compromise, now scuttled, would have allowed uninsured Americans over 55 to buy into Medicare. Other sticking points also remained, including Nelson’s insistence on prohibiting government subsidies for insurance policies that cover abortion.

Reid is aiming to pass a bill by Dec. 24, with hopes of sending a final measure, backed by the full Congress, to Obama in January. Some liberal activists were insisting on the House’s more liberal version of reform, which includes a public option in which the uninsured could buy into a government-run health plan. But the president, Reid, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi appeared to be willing to sacrifice provisions sought by liberals to get a health-reform bill enacted. “The final bill won’t include everything that everybody wants,” Obama said, insisting that this shouldn’t stand in the way of “an achievement that’s eluded congresses and presidents for generations.”

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What the editorials said

Could Joe Lieberman be more “hypocritical”? said The New York Times. After Democrats reached a compromise allowing Americans between 55 and 65 to buy into Medicare, the chances of reform passing looked good. Then Lieberman blew it all up—never mind that he had voiced support for the same provision just three months ago. Lieberman has taken “more than $1 million” from insurers in his Senate career, and one has to wonder whose bidding he is now doing.

Everyone knows what game the Democrats are playing here, said Investor’s Business Daily. The 2,000-page monstrosity they’re hellbent on passing will create a “trillion-dollar statist wish list” of “new rules, regulations, and federal micro­management.” Soon, a health-care system that now provides excellent care will be ruined, and costs will explode. In a few years, Democrats “will be screaming that to save health care, we must enact Euro-style single-payer,” with the private sector eliminated completely.

What the columnists said

Democrats look increasingly “suicidal,” said Byron York in the Washington Examiner. With 53 percent of Americans believing their own costs will rise as a result of reform, Democrats “seem determined to defy public opinion.” The public, they believe, doesn’t know what’s good for it, and with “various proposals lying wrecked along the road,” they’ve concluded it’s too late to turn back. So Democrats will push on “even if it kills them.”

The bill may be “messy, incomplete, and replete with bribes to every interest group imaginable,” said Kevin Drum in MotherJones.com. But it’s “well worth passing.” Liberals only complain about it because their “aspirations” have risen so high following a “resurgence of liberalism.” The bill still eliminates “most of the hated abuses of the insurance industry,” said Paul Starr in The American Prospect Online, including denying coverage for pre-existing conditions and dropping insurance to people who get sick. Most important, the bill extends coverage to 33 million uninsured Americans, “relieving one of the greatest injustices in our society.”

Obama and the Democrats will pay a steep price for that achievement, said Steve Kornacki in The New York Observer. Few of the legislation’s “positive effects” will go into effect by the 2010 congressional elections, freeing Republicans to claim that Obama spent more of the voters’ tax dollars and gave them nothing in return. Still, Obama made a brave choice in pushing for health reform in his first year. “Big domestic achievements come at a great political cost”—think of civil rights—“but what’s the point of being president if you’re not willing to reach for them?”