The opt-out public option buzz
Have Senate Democrats come up with the perfect compromise on health-care reform?
Ladies and gentlemen, we may have a winner, said Alex Koppleman in Salon. Sens. Chuck Schumer (D, N.Y.) and Tom Carper (D, Del.) appear to have come up with a health-care reform compromise that “both liberal and conservative Senate Democrats can agree on”—a government-run public option that individual states can opt out of. This could be “just a temporary fad,” but so far it’s won a “fairly enthusiastic” welcome from Democrats across the spectrum.
The “political value” of the opt-out public option is “pretty obvious,” said Ed Kilgore in The New Republic. It gives “shaky Democrats and maybe a Republican or two” leeway to not filibuster the larger bill. But are the states really ready “to get into the driver’s seat”? Health-care reform is a complex issue, and it’s not clear the opt-out clause will do anything but “transfer much of the yelling and screaming and lobbying” from Washington to state capitals.
It would do much more than that, said Allahpundit in Hot Air. The “opt-out scheme is basically just a prisoner’s dilemma to get recalcitrant red states to acquiesce in a government plan”—once opted-out taxpayers get the bill for this health-care “boondoggle,” they’ll demand “relief” through the “cheap government plan.” I get why liberals like it, but “I don’t get why any fiscal conservative would go for it.”
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The bill it would be attached to, by Sen. Max Baucus, is “more fiscally responsible than any other” on the table, said David Brooks in The New York Times. But the main problem with all the “top-down systems” up for discussion is that they “retard innovation” by using the government’s “monopoly power to squeeze costs” and entrench our badly “flawed system.”
That’s why the opt-out compromise would be such a “neat policy experiment,” said Ezra Klein in The Washington Post. “Blue states get the public option at full strength and the red states get to ignore it entirely,” and we see which system works better. Will the public option confirm “the worst fears of conservatives,” or the “hopes of liberal,” or both, or neither? It would be nice to see our policies duke it out for once instead of our congressmen.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
What should you be stockpiling for 'World War Three'?
In the Spotlight Britons advised to prepare after the EU tells its citizens to have an emergency kit just in case
By Elizabeth Carr-Ellis, The Week UK Published
-
Carnivore diet: why people are eating only meat
The Explainer 'Meatfluencers' are taking social media by storm but experts warn meat-only diets have health consequences
By Elizabeth Carr-Ellis, The Week UK Published
-
Scientists want to fight malaria by poisoning mosquitoes with human blood
Under the radar Drugging the bugs
By Devika Rao, The Week US Published