Personally, I think House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn is making stuff up and offering false hope by saying that the Democrats may revisit the public health insurance option if they retain their majorities. But I do think we’ll eventually have a public option both because the government will be desperate for the cost saving and because people are going to continue to complain about the individual mandate forcing them to purchase insurance from hated private for-profit corporations. The time for that has to be ripe, though. And it won’t be ripe until after the program is up and running in 2013. A more accurate prediction of what will happen if the Democrats retain their majorities is that they will be able to implement the new health care system without having it defunded by lunatic Republicans. And even that is iffy, considering the need to 60 votes. We’ll probably have to use the budget reconciliation process to fund the implementation.
