Just when everyone seemed ready to put the public option on the funeral pyre, it looks like it was brought back to life, or at least a vegetative coma.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D – Nev.) met with President Obama Thursday to push a healthcare bill with the now-infamous government insurance provision written in, despite other senators’ anxiety about the idea.
In the House, Speaker Pelosi announced she was confident she had enough votes to get a House bill out as soon as Monday, but not with the “robust” version of the public option she had originally hoped for.
Moderate Dems are suggesting softer, cuddlier versions of the option with opt-out provisions and state-by-state trigger plans, which would cause a public option to kick in only if insurers failed to expand coverage. Whatever it takes to not to freak out Sen. Olympia Snowe (R – Maine) and cause her to stop pretending to be a Democrat for the next few weeks.
Or as Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) said, “I applaud [Reid’s] effort. But it’s too risky.”
But risky how, exactly?
It’s true, Democrats in both houses want and need the entire party on board before they take their bills to the floor. But in crafting legislation, the preoccupation with opinion polls and political pandering is at best, unnecessary, and at worst, damaging to the progress of true healthcare reform.
Reid himself said his decision to bring forward the public option bill was spurred by opinion polls showing support for a public option.
This is not a bill that should be left up to constituent whims. It’s over 1500 pages long, is incredibly complex and involves major changes to the tax code.
But more importantly, it will save lives.
Congress does not look to opinion polls when they vote on human rights legislation, or on education reform, or on acts that would keep Americans safe (for better or worse – I’m looking at you, PATRIOT Act).
No Congressman has ever asked you if you want roads. Because everyone needs roads, just like everyone needs healthcare.
Moderate provisions like the opt-out would be a good idea if the 12 million people who would benefit most from the public option were enfranchised enough such that states actually considered their interests when deciding whether to opt out.
But they aren’t, so it’s not.
No healthcare bill will be perfect, but it’s bound to be more perfect than the Machiavellian monstrosity we have now, in which millions of Americans go without any care and sick Americans are purged from insurance rolls just when they need care most.
Snowe has said we “don’t want to rush this train out of the station,” but we don’t want to deliberate it to death, either.
Rather than squabbling over nonsense nuances, both the House and Senate bills should focus on the fundamentals: guaranteeing universal access to coverage, roping in costs through government controls and mandating participation in a plan, any plan. And of course, sticking to funding it through tax increases for only the 0.3 percent of richest families, as promised.
There should be no worry of angered constituents when the final bill is rolled out if those conditions are met. And if they aren’t, then Pelosi, Reid and the Baucus caucus should get back in the committee room and make it so.