51 Senators Open To Public Option

[babylonsister]

http://www.openleft.com/diary/13334/51-senators-open-to-public-option

51 Senators Open To Public Option
by: Chris Bowers
Wed May 13, 2009 at 17:28


It now seems likely that there are enough Senators in support of a public health care option to pass it through the 50-vote reconciliation process. Here are the numbers:

* Forty-three Senators are neither Republicans nor in Evan Bayh's "conservodem" group. None of them have come out in opposition to a public option in the health care reform bill. This includes both Jim Webb and Jon Tester, who often stray from the party on big votes.

* Six members of Evan Bayh's group have indicated they are open to a public option: Tom Carper (DE), Kay Hagan (NC), Mary Landrieu (LA), Glanche Lincoln (AR), Claire McCaskill (MO), and Mark Warner, (VA). That makes 49.

* Arlen Specter, who falls into a class of Senator all his own, has also indicated he is open to a public option. That makes 50.

* Susan Collins is a lone Republican voice who has said the same. She makes 51.

Without the 60-vote option available to Republicans on health care, that makes enough to pass a public option in the health care bill. As such, it could really happen. And it needs to happen, as it is the only real way to keep down health care costs and make health care available to everyone.

Looking back over the past few months, forcing health care reconciliation in the budget blueprint, and the Progressive Caucus taking a hard line on the public option were huge developments. I have complained a lot over the past month that there really isn't much in the way of spending differences between the conservative and progressive movements (for example, in the post below this one), but a public option for health care would be a big deal. It would be the biggest, long-term change in the federal government since Medicare was singed into law in 1965. Remarkably, it is actually within reach right now.

Hope!

[Oregone]

1. 51 Senators open to a viable, funded "Public Option" with negotiating power

Or open to an unfunded, anemic "public option" which will be a repository for high-risk health consumers to enhance profits of private insurers?

No one really knows what they are getting yet.

[Skinner]

2. That is an awfully narrow margin.

And it includes people who have merely said they are "open to" a public option.

I hope they can do it. But clearly this is still an uphill fight.

[backscatter712]

3. Is Franken included?

He's probably going to be seated in another month or two, especially considering that Coleman's now the subject of an FBI investigation.

That may make 52...

[CBR]

4. Carper better come through... nt

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

5. The devil is in the details

Schumer's description of the public option is no real public option and is nothing but a sham. If his version coming out of the Finance Committee is what becomes the public option, then it will have a brief, unhappy life and the private for profit plans will emerge ultimately triumphant, unchallenged and back in charge.

Even worse, a gutted public plan will kill off government underwritten healthcare for the masses pretty much forever. "We tried that and it didn't work" . . . blah blah blah

[subterranean]

6. Which of Schumer's conditions do you object to?

He said the public plan should be self-sustaining (i.e., be financed entirely by premiums), be required to keep a reserve for payment of claims (just as private insurers do), pay doctors and hospitals more than Medicare (he doesn't say how much more), offer the same minimum benefits that private insurance has to (that shouldn't be hard), not force doctors to accept it (they're not forced to accept Medicare or any other kind of insurance now), and be managed separately from the agency that regulates insurance companies.

I believe the public plan would work better if it could get at least *partial* funding from tax dollars. Other than that, I don't see what's so unreasonable about these conditions.