RIP Public Option?

Yesterday, the Senate Finance Committee rejected a pair of amendments aimed at inserting the public option in the Baucus plan.  Quite frankly, it’s about time that happened.  I get the sense that some liberal members of Congress think that, just because the Democrats won big in the last couple of elections, they can enact any policy they want, and disregard everyone else.  The double rebuke should hopefully bring them back down to earth; the constant gridlock has gotten to be very annoying lately.  As Senator Baucus says in the New York Times, the public option simply does not have enough votes to pass the Senate.

Despite the setbacks, there is still a chance that the public option might make it through.  As is mentioned in the CNN article, there are still many chances for the public option, from combining the Senate bills into one after the Finance Committee passes theirs to the Conference Committee between the House and Senate.  All of the House bills contain the public option.  However, adding the public option in conference would ruin any sort of consensus gained in the Senate from not having it; it would be a shame to make it to conference committee and have reform fail there.  If the Senators can figure out a way to pass a reform bill with a public option, even a watered-down version, by all means, they should go for it.  If it remains clear that it will not work, they should stop wasting their time and energy trying to work it in.

While the public option has its good points, there are just too many objections to it, not to mention the fact that it is an extremely liberal idea.  While it is true that the Republicans are in the minority now, they are not inconsequential.  The Baucus plan is what it is: apparently the closest we can get to a moderate plan to reform health care.  If the Democrats do not wish to see all their work and their hard-won majorities to slip away, they should stop pushing the public option as hard as they are.  In addition, the Republicans have some good ideas, to be sure, but they too must consider where the Democrats are coming from on this issue.  The fact of the matter is, for health care reform to pass,both the Democrats and the Republicans need to find a common ground in the proposals currently up for debate, or the entire Congress will end up looking bad.