The Dialectic Of Health Care; Anti-Incumbent Fever Spurs The Revival Of The Public Option

  This past week I was surprised to learn that reports of the death of the “Public Option” seem to be wildly exaggerated. Written off as progressive pie-in-the-sky by mainstream punditry (and more importantly, Rahm Emanuel) little more than a month ago, as of this writing 18 senators have gotten religion and word is that the increasingly cautious Barack Obama will give his blessing if Harry Reid signs on. What’s going on here? One difference-maker has to be the Scott Brown Effect; anti-incumbency resulting from bi-partisan populist rage directed toward Obama’s coddling of the financial sector has sent Democrats scurrying to find a mea culpa to satisfy the “little people”.  Liberal elite consensus seems to have momentarily spurned the private insurance industry and its massive lobbying warchest;  even so the public option is not exactly Medicare For All. As previously envisioned, this program will enroll at most 9 million people and will not begin until 2013; by then a newly elected republican administration would obviously do everything in its’ power to derail it, so it’s not exactly political suicide to support the public option NOW. In its’ last-gasp previous incarnation the P.O. had been emasculated to the point of where the program would have been privately run anyway so insurers would not be out of the loop. And  with Obama finally realizing that budgetary reconciliation is the only option left for saving his agenda,  the mere hope that a public option will be part of the solution will be seen as enough to shore up his increasingly dispirited base.  After all, 18 senators is way short of the majority needed to pass this “socialist” program that so rankles Democratic corporate contributors.