Harry Reid announced this week that the Senate’s version of the healthcare reform bill will include a public option for health insurance. This is a major victory to the liberal/ democrat cause, and though the bill has not passed yet, it at least shows that the party can pull it together enough to write a bill that speaks for their aspirations. Now, we’ll see if they can get it passed and into Obama’s hands.
"I believe there's a strong consensus to move forward in this direction," Reid said to reporters. I don’t know where he got the idea to use the word consensus, but hey, I’m not a senator. He made no indication of whether he’s got the 60 votes necessary to pass the bill through the senate with a public option in there, but it sounds like he’s going for it. Maybe it’s a chicken game, seeing if the democrats in the senate will actually oppose the public option- can you still call yourself a democrat if you fail to get behind the #1 item on Obama’s agenda? We’ll see.

There are a handful of moderate democrats who have wavered in their support. I feel like Reid can win the gamble of calling them on that bluff- and he’s got a plan. It comes in the form of an option for states to opt out of the public option, kind of like former Governor Palin opted Alaska out of federal stimulus money. You don’t want the federal government’s help? Fine, then- say no.

Olympia Snowe, the lone Republican senator who offered support for a version of the health care reform package, said she was disappointed by Reid’s statement that he would include the public option. Fair enough. She wants the public option not to be something states opt out of, rather that it be something that comes into play if local insurance agencies don’t hit certain benchmarks. In essence, she wants the public option to be a backup plan if the insurance industry can’t get its act together.
That sounds nice in theory but would cause so many problems trying to set up the public option and make it impossible to budget that I think it would essentially make Americans lose faith in the public option. Which may be what she’s going for.

In essence it is an issue of money- saving money. The current healthcare system loses a lot of money. Democrats say the public option will both insure the uninsured and save money- Republicans say it won’t save any money and will damage the health insurance industry. Both sides are speculating and there’s no way to know if either of them is right.

I continue to support the public option because I think having millions of people out there with no insurance at all is a massive mistake- let people go for years or even decades without health care at all and you are just asking for a bunch of people showing up at the emergency room or in hospitals with untreated conditions that are now advanced- then you have to decide whether to let them die or eat the cost. Right now, we do some of each.

This decision, while being argued on the standard issue of money, will result in a decision about what value the U.S. places on the quality of, and ultimately the value of, human life.

Photo Credit under CCL: Ralph Alsweng