Public option advocates are asking themselves some hard but important questions right now. I certainly don't claim to have all of the answers.
The one point I do want to stress is that it's not the means (the public option) that draws firm opposition from what Senator Wyden aptly calls the "Status Quo Caucus" -- it's the end. It's real reform.
In the states represented by the four senators in the Democratic caucus who are threatening progress on health care reform, there are almost 2 million people without health insurance, according to state-by-state health care reform impact reports released by the Department of Health and Human Services.
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It is tragic enough that one party has chosen to brand itself as the defenders of the health care status quo... It is quite another matter for members of a Senate Democratic majority that was given that majority in order to change the health care system to side with those who have no real solutions for the people in their states who can't get insurance, can't afford medications, or forgo potentially live-saving medical screenings.
Take a moment today to look at the statistics in your state-especially if you live in Arkansas, Connecticut, Louisiana and Nebraska-and tell your senator that it's not the health insurance industry that they need to worry about; the insurers will find a way to survive in a world with a robust public option and regulations that assure patients actually get the medical coverage they pay for. (And it's not the right-wing spin machine, either, which is as poised to trash a severely watered-down health-care plan as it is to trash a unrepentantly progressive one.) It's the millions of people who might not survive without health insurance and access to care that they need to fight for.
The way some Democrats want to respond to numbers like these is pure and simple death wish politics. It's the bizarre inside-the-Beltway centrism that cares more about what corporate lobbyists and CBO scoring than about what anyone who might actually vote thinks: don't anything too tough to Wall Street, don't create jobs because it will add to the deficit, don't put anything into health care reform that voters might actually notice for the next five years, and be "fair" to the poor insurance companies.
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Democrats have to figure out how to produce real benefits for real people now, not in future years.
As usual with Lux, the entire piece is highly recommended.
[T[he public option that's survived is a shell of its original self. We're talking about a plan that a fairly small percentage of the population will be eligible to participate in, which features negotiated rates, and which states can opt out of.
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If this approach catches on among lawmakers, we can probably guess what's going to happen to the provision. There are several Democratic senators who've been pushing hard for a public option since the beginning, but if they come to believe that what's left of the measure is hardly worth fighting for, and reform proponents fear that the remaining public option won't be effective, they'll invest their energies elsewhere.
Jane Hamsher makes the case for continuing the fight.
The public option battle has become a proxy war over who controls government, whether Congress has the slightest responsibility to reflect the will of the public, whether Democrats from Obama on down can just casually abandon their campaign promises in the wake of unrelenting influence peddling and whether progressives are going to take a stand for something and refuse to back down.
I'd also recommend reading both Benen and Hamsher's posts in their entirety.
Vice President Biden is very effective here. There's an authenticity to Biden that elected Democrats could use a lot more of.
The format (which is similar to the 30 minute ad the Obama - Biden campaign ran in late October 2008) works, and it's good to see the trust factor as part of the Administration's pitch. However, if elected Democrats don't deliver for the people they talk about. and truly address the problems they highlight, their message could easily come back to haunt them. The trust factor is a double edged - sword.
The main questions in my mind:
What are the chances that the public option can be improved going forward?
What would be the consequences of a weak public option, both policy - wise and politically?
It doesn't look good right now. In fact, at this moment, it looks very bad. But there's still a relative lack of clarity on reconciliation.
It's extremely frustrating that we're still having to rely on the Krugman Effect: "reluctant Democratic politicians" having to be "dragged by their base into taking highly popular positions."
