Tag: public option

Will there be a public option sellout?

Verum Serum wants to know, “Will Obama Really Sellout Liberals and Drop the Public Option?” Off-the-record pushback to the contrary, probably: when it’s been suddenly made clear that your job is to actually convince the American public that the current plan is better than no plan at all, no individual part of a plan is non-negotiable.  The real question is what progressives will do about said sellout.  I predict ‘nothing,’ past the usual whining.  They never do.

And I look forward to writing another post like this when we push the administration into endorsing meaningful tort reform.  Which, as I have noted earlier, is not negotiable.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

‘Public option’ on the table?

(Via Hot Air Headlines) I could be cruel about this, but if it turns out that the title here (“Party leaders prepare liberals to accept a health care reform deal“) is accurate then I see no particular reason to gloat over the fact that the quote-unquote ‘public option’ will be sacrificed for the sake of ‘conservative’ Democrat, Republican, and popular opinion.  We’re all one country and we’re all Americans, after all, so I’d just be glad that we’ll be able to move on from having health care hung up on this particular controversy.  That being said, once we remove the public option from consideration we will have to move on to discussing why on earth we’re talking about revising health care without first discussing the blatantly obvious need for tort reform.

This is not really negotiable, I’m sorry to say.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Howard Dean threatens primary challenges on public option ‘no’ votes.

Funny that he should mention that.

The former chair of the DNC – apparently, they finally let him come back from American Samoa – very much wants there to be a public option in the health care rationing bill, and he’s willing to help launch revenge attacks against Democrats who might stop him from getting it:

Former Democratic National Committee chair Howard Dean fired one of the clearest warning shots at hesitant Democratic lawmakers on Thursday, insisting that if the party was unable to produce a health care bill with a public plan, there would be electoral consequences.

“I do think there will be primaries as the result of all this, if the bill doesn’t pass with a public option,” Dean said, in a phone interview with the Huffington Post.

Continue reading Howard Dean threatens primary challenges on public option ‘no’ votes.

Jim McDermott (D, WA-07) on the public option, translated into English.

For some bizarre reason, Rep. Keith Ellison thought that it was a good idea to get Rep. McDermott’s opinions on the public option on the public record. Who am I to pass up such an opportunity?

Yes, he really is advocating a policy that, to quote a colleague, “prevents insurers from calculating rates or willingness to insure based on risk; all must be served, and for no higher cost than anybody else.” And no, nobody he’s close to will ever have to face the consequences of McDermott’s policies. What, do you think that these people plan to live by the rules they’d impose upon the rest of us?

Moe Lane

PS: Gresham’s Law: “Bad money drives out good.” It’s a common problem in any system where one competitor for resources has coercive powers and the others do not. Conservatives handle this by punishing abuse of the coercive power; libertarians wish the coercive power removed altogether; and liberals don’t understand why this is automatically a problem, at least when they control the competitor.

Crossposted to RedState.

Schumer: no need for bipartisanship on health care.

He’s got those sixty votes, you see.  And he’s impatient.  Impatient of the way that people are still getting in the way of his shepherding of a health care plan that neither him or his will ever have to use.

Schumer: With Franken Seated No Need To Compromise On Public Option

One of the leading Senate Democrats in the health care reform battle said that the seating of Al Franken has given the party the purpose and direction it needs to ensure that a public option for insurance coverage remains in any bill.

“If you did a consensus within the Democratic Party, you would find the level-playing-field public option to be the answer,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. “And now that we have 60 votes, it seems to me like we don’t have to turn it inside out for something we don’t like.”

Well, that’s certainly blunt enough; so, shall we get on with it then, Senators?

That would be Senators Bayh, Bennett, Gillibrand, Lincoln, and Specter, mind you.  After all, none of you are scared of taking a firm position on an issue that’s splitting the country right down the middle, are you?

Moe Lane

PS: See also.

Crossposted to RedState.