Actually, I think I'm beginning to see how we still MIGHT get some sort of public option...

[regnaD kciN]

From Yahoo News:

The obstacle that loomed largest was the Medicare expansion proposal, vestige of a monthslong debate over the role of government in the newly revised health care system. It emerged last week as part of a framework agreement between moderates and liberals. Additionally, the proposal calls for creation of nationwide plans run by private insurance companies under the supervision of the Office of Personnel Management, which oversees health plans for members of Congress and other federal workers.

The two provisions were seen as a replacement for Reid's initial call for a government-run insurance plan to compete with private industry, a liberal priority opposed by moderates as an unwanted government intrusion. The one unrelated to Medicare is expected to survive, but without standby authority for the OPM to set up a government-run plan if no private coverage options materialize.

I was unaware that the non-profit OPM system was still going to be part of the bill, but that really changes a great deal. Previously, I've been cynical about the notion of "pass this bill now, then pass the public option and Medicare buy-in through reconciliation right afterwards," as I figured that no one would want to re-visit HCR after passing this bill. However, I can see the possibility that, although there's no trigger currently attached to the OPM plan, if that plan did fail to draw private insurers to offer coverage, that failure could be used to introduce a "corrective" bill that would provide for the same public option (and, possibly, Medicare buy-in) that should have been part of this bill -- but, since it would be a bill (unlike this one) only dealing with funding and not with regulating an industry, it could more easily be put through via reconciliation...and, thus, could get around Emperor Lieberman's pocket veto.

Maybe I'm being unduly optimistic, but that gives me more hope that we could still get a public option through reconciliation than I had before.

[lapfog_1]

1. You think "supervision" by the OPM

of private health insurance is somehow sort of like a public option? Or a lack of participation by private insurance in an OPM supervised exchange would be some sort of trigger to enact new legislation?

Do you really think anybody in Congress really wants to revisit this in the next decade?

I want some of what you are smoking. Seriously.

[regnaD kciN]

4. Leaving the sarcasm aside...

What I'm saying is that, if (as is likely to happen) the insurance companies, without the pressure of a public-option trigger, don't put in plans for the OPM system, leaving it with only Blue Cross (or, say, nobody at all), when the time rolls around to implement the whole system, it would be possible for progressives in Congress to use this as the basis to introduce a new public-option bill. Since that wouldn't be the bundle of funding and insurance regulations this bill is, but merely dealt with government funding of programs, that would be far easier to get the Senate Parliamentarian to classify as appropriate for the reconciliation process, thus bypassing a filibuster.

By contrast, if the bill (as it existed before yesterday) had been proposed for reconciliation, it is likely all the subsidies and the public option would have been approved for the process, but everything else in the bill, such as the exchange and the ban on recissions and pre-existing conditions, would have been removed. It would have been very difficult to split the bill in two now and try to pass both separately, one through normal channels, the other through reconciliation (largely because the Usual Suspects would then filibuster the normal-channel bill, even if it didn't contain a public option).

Do I think Congress will want to revisit this? Right away, no. But, around a year or so before the mandates kick in, I can easily see the progressive wing of the Democrats announce that they're shocked, shocked! that the OPM plan, "the non-profit cornerstone of cost-containment," is being ignored by those treacherous insurance companies, and that Something Must Be Done to remedy the situation. What with mandates staring the American public in the eye, there may well be a strong impetus to take more drastic action such as a robust public option -- in a form that can more easily be passed via reconciliation.

[frebrd]

2. Kick!

[pokercat999]

3. Or, the American people could exercise THEIR veto

power. We could exercise the only power we have left. We could refuse to pay......anything. Not a general strike but a complete no pay policy until we have single payer, living wage, a maximum wage and real retirement, etc. Think on it, no payments to mortgages, credit cards, utilities, taxes, charge everything possible and don't pay. How long could they, the government, of the corporations, by the corporations and for the corporations hold out? You think we live pay check to pay check? Corporations are the same and an immediate stop to almost all payment would crush them. Millions of us would clog the courts into uselessness there would be no recourse for the corporate government but to cave.

Do you think maybe Harry Reid and a few other (like most) Democrats are breathing sighs of relief, because the threat of veto saved them from themselves? They can say with a sarcastic wink and nod to their corporate sponsors, "We almost got a real heal care bill", while they say to the public with all the fake sincerity they can muster, "We almost got a health care bill". Where is a real national leader? Where is today's MLK? Many of us thought it was Obama but he has proven he is just a stooge for the MIC, a corporate tool.