A defeat for the Democrats’ ‘public option’

What happened

The possibility that a final health-care reform bill will include a government-run health-insurance plan grew dimmer this week, when the Senate Finance Committee twice rejected liberal Democrats’ efforts to include the so-called public option. The committee’s moderate Democrats and all its Republicans voted against amendments to include the public option, which would create a Medicare-like insurance program to compete with private insurers and drive down health-care costs. Republican Sen. Charles Grassley said a public option represented a “slow walk toward government-controlled, single-payer health care,” and Democratic committee Chairman Max Baucus joined him in voting against it, saying, “If this provision is in this bill, it will jeopardize meaningful health reform.”

Despite the defeat, Democrats said the public option wasn’t dead. In the House, Democratic leaders worked to merge bills from three different committees, and all three bills contain a public option. “I believe we will have a public option in our bill,” said Speaker Nancy Pelosi. With both the House and Senate now trying to merge competing bills, the political wrangling could open the door to a compromise suggested by Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe. Snowe has proposed a “trigger” mechanism that would create a public insurance plan only in states where insurers failed to keep costs from rising beyond a designated level.

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What the editorials said

“A tiny morsel of common sense prevailed” when the Finance Committee opposed this push toward “nationalized health care,” said the New York Post. But the bill fashioned by Baucus still entails “deep government involvement” in health care, and requires that every American buy health insurance, or pay a steep penalty. It’s also loaded with “job-killing taxes” and unfunded mandates, and would make deep cuts in Medicare Advantage, a popular program offering more choice than traditional Medicare.

It’s remarkable watching Republicans rail against “single-payer” health care, said The New York Times. At the same time that they’re trying to kill the public option, Republicans are repositioning themselves as saviors of the single-payer, government-funded plan called Medicare. Sadly, this cynical strategy “seems to be working,” with many older Americans now believing reform will hurt their medical care.

What the columnists said

Democrats aren’t enamored of the “public option” because they think it’s a solution to rising costs, said Holman Jenkins in The Wall Street Journal. They view it as “a halfway house” to the single-payer, socialized system that liberals have always dreamed of. Fortunately, “the public is not as dumb” as they think, which is why “Obama’s public option died a bipartisan death.”

It can be revived, if Democrats simply sell it differently, said Theodore Roszak in the Los Angeles Times. Instead of using the confusing term “public option,” champions of reform should propose amending Medicare so that “it would be available to anyone regardless of age.” Medicare is “a time-tested program that people know and trust,” and it would be very hard for conservatives to attack. Medicare may not be perfect, but it certainly is more cost-efficient than private insurance plans, said Ezra Klein in TheWashingtonpost.com. From 2000 to 2004, Medicare’s costs grew 6.7 percent per person, while private insurance’s costs rose 9.5 percent. Letting it compete with private insurance would “give us some time” to figure out other ways of fixing a broken system.

Don’t count out the public option just yet, said Carrie Budoff Brown in Politico.com. As congressional leaders wrench their respective committee bills into a final package on which each chamber will vote, “the calculus could change.” Why? Because President Obama will be the “final arbiter” of whether the public option survives. In the Senate, he’ll need 60 votes to break a likely filibuster attempt by Republicans. But after that, only 51 votes will be required to pass the actual legislation, a number some public-option supporters believe is within reach. With Democrats firmly in charge of Congress, “the final decision rests almost entirely on the president’s shoulders.”