Democrats Increasingly Optimistic About Public Option In Health Care Reform

The public option is dead. Long live the public option.

That’s the situation now prevailing on a key sticking point in health care reform. GOPers hate the public option because they say it would symbolize the Obama administration’s encroachment into the private sector and be a huge step into socialized medicine. Democrats are split, with some progressives nearly making support of the public option in voting a litmus test for “real” Democrats akin to what Republicans conservatives have done on the issue of abortion to members of their party who dare support it.

But now not only hope (for some) springs eternal on the public option…but now Democrats who support it have have some press reports declaring the option alive. And their analysis is echoed (somewhat) by Republican Senator John McCain, the New York Times reports:

Several Democratic senators voiced optimism on Sunday that Congress would pass a health care bill containing at least the germ of a government-run insurance program. Their expectations were grudgingly seconded by Senator John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate in 2008.

“I think the Democrats have the votes, and in the House, Blue Dogs bark but never bite,” Mr. McCain said on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” using the nickname for conservative Democrats . “So I don’t think they have a problem over in the House side. In the Senate I think the Democrats are very aware that they don’t want a repeat of the Clinton failure in 1994. So I think it’s very likely they will get something through. But it’s not clear to me what it is.”

Mr. McCain of Arizona was among of the senators appearing on the Sunday morning television talk shows, which again focused on health care and Afghanistan. The senators’ remarks came after Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, told President Obama on Thursday that he would try to press for a government-run insurance program. With five health care bills under consideration in both branches of Congress, Speaker Nancy Pelosi has already said that the House version of the legislation would include the so-called public option, but other key senators have previously said it would be difficult to round up 60 votes needed to guarantee that the legislation would not be blocked by a likely Republican filibuster.

One question is what kind of public option — a full-blown government-insurance plan, or something like a “trigger” provision, which would create a government-run or nonprofit plan if insurance companies did not cut costs within a set period of time or under certain conditions.

Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer sounds more optimistic than ever:

New York Sen. Charles Schumer said today “that we’re very close to getting the 60 votes” Democrats need to move forward with a health care reform bill and he believes that the final legislation will include some form of the public option.

Schumer said on NBC’s Meet the Press that he and Majority Leader Harry Reid have been talked to Democratic senators across the ideological spectrum about a public option plan that would allow states to “opt out.”

Schumer said the plan differed from what liberal Democrats were pushing for because they wanted a “much more government-oriented program” that imposed rates for providers and mandated that everyone must obtain insurance. He said that under his proposal, the new entity would operate on a “level playing field” because it would have to negotiate rates like private insurers and that people would not be required to take the government option.

He said the government would set-up the public plan but after three months, it would “have to play by the same rules” as private insurers as far as requirements and then pay back the start-up money back over the course of several years. But he insisted that the only way to bring health costs down was to provide competition to private insurers because they would not do it on their own.

Be sure to read this Reuters Factbox.