Those of us who support single payer, and for whom the public option is already the compromise position, are rightly distressed every time a trial balloon is sent out by the White House saying we should consider dropping the public option in order to "get a bill passed." Positioning the public option as the "liberal" position was a terrible negotiating strategy.
A negotiating misstep that has received far less attention has been Obama's immediate departure from the position he took as a candidate regarding an individual mandate. Candidate Obama pointed out how unseemly it would be to enforce a requirement that somebody purchase something from a private company. President Obama rolled right over on the insurance industry's argument that it was unfair to require that they take all comers without making sure that the youngest and healthiest citizens were required to join the pool. It's a reasonable argument, but he shouldn't have given on it so quickly without getting something in return.
The way to correct this pair of blunders now is to link them together.
What I'm suggesting is that Obama should make explicit that the individual mandate and the public option go hand in hand. If one is passed, so is the other. If one is dropped, so is the other. If one is placed under some kind of trigger mechanism, so is the other.
The arguments for this link are two-fold:
- The reasons for doing both are essentially the same -- to keep the system honest. In the case of the individual mandate, it's to keep the customer base honest. The insurance industry won't be forced to cover sick people (what a concept!) without getting the benefit of healthy premium payers. In the case of the public option, it's to keep the insurance companies honest.
- Having one without the other would be a disaster. Mostly I'm imagining the specter of having an individual mandate without a public option -- in essence telling people they must purchase something from an industry that has screwed them over.
What it boils down to is that I've been on board with the idea that progressives should push to defeat any bill that doesn't contain a public option. But I'm now willing to drop the public option if the individual mandate is also dropped. We could do away with recission, pre-existing conditions limitations, etc. and do a lot of good. But we won't be providing a giveaway to the insurance companies without also giving them some competition.