I doubt that the Senate will pass a health care bill with a public option but at least they’re threatening to do so. The Republicans were so convinced that they’d killed all health care reform that they must be trembling in fear. I know the right-wing blogosphere is terrified. At this point, I’ll just be happy if they can expand coverage and reform the insurance industry. I’m more focused on keeping the Republicans out of power than I am in accomplishing anything (not that I see those as divergent goals). Obviously, a bill with a public option would be more popular than a bill without one. Yet, Ezra has a point:
The administration has just spent weeks rebranding itself as a bipartisan outpost in a sea of bickering hacks. Resuscitating the most controversial element of the bill and running it through reconciliation looks less like reaching out and more like delivering a hard left cross to the opposition.
One way or another, however, Senate Democrats and the White House need to choose their path and communicate it clearly. If Democrats want to use the public option to reinvigorate their base and attack the insurers and push this bill over the finish line in a final blaze of populist fury, more power to them. If they decide that the process is fragile and Americans want bipartisanship and this is a bad time to introduce uncertainty into chaos, that makes sense, too.
But it would be murder to leave the public option hanging in the middle of the process with too few votes to pass, too many supporters to kill, and enough bitter controversy that Republicans can just hammer away at Democrats forever and ever and ever. A zombie public option debate could well drag health-care reform into the grave as well.
It does kind of seem like the public option is a zombie. If that scares Republicans…good.
