Obama in the Operating Room
Yesterday’s joint statement by Sens. Max Baucus and Ted Kennedy promising to “seek common ground on health reform legislation” is, in essence, a declaration of war over inclusion of a public insurance plan to compete with private companies.
As chairmen of the two powerful committees shaping the legislation, Baucus (Finance) and Kennedy (Health, Education, Labor and Pensions) will be jousting over the core issue that the Obama Administration has been tap-dancing around but will eventually have to face head-on in what promises to be a serious test of the President’s toughness and resolve.
After failing to get more than a glimmer of bipartisanship on the stimulus bill, the President up to now has been wooing both the health care establishment and its Republican mercenaries, but the public option (Medicare-for-all) is the deal-breaker he will eventually have to face.
Baucus’ Finance Committee, to get Republican Chuck Grassley and his crew on board, has been bending over backward with compromises that would give lip-service to a public plan but “only if private insurance companies had not made meaningful, affordable coverage available to all Americans within several years.”
Kennedy and 28 other senators are not buying that…
2 Responses to “Obama in the Operating Room”
“House Democratic leaders are closer to Mr. Kennedy’s position and want to create a public plan option, which is anathema to insurance companies and to many Republicans.”
It's anathema to anyone who has noticed the big shortcoming in the current system: no one is accountable for how money gets spent.
Since once again, Obama will get exactly ZIP in terms of “bipartisanship” from the party of NO, time for the Dems to lay it out the way they want it, without compromise.
BTW, as Sen Leahy pointed out Sunday, the public option is not nearly expensive as has been suggested. It turns out, the highest risk and highest cost patients are already covered by a single payer plan–Medicare. The uninsured, by contrast, are largely young and healthy.