We've won the battle over making the public option an essential part of healthcare reform.
Now we have to win the war over what form that public option takes.
A report today in The Hill confirms that the the public option will be included:
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), once in polite disagreement over the idea of a public option component in healthcare legislation, are approaching a breaking point over the issue....
Having deferred the issue to Baucus this summer, Reid signaled on Thursday that he is prepared to join Sens. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and John Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), who both pushed a public option amendment that failed in a committee vote last Tuesday.
"We are going to have a public option before this bill goes to the president's desk," Reid said in a conference call with constituents on Thursday, as reported by the Las Vegas Sun. "I believe the public option is so vitally important to create a level playing field and prevent the insurance companies from taking advantage of us."
On the same day, Harkin gave The Des Moines Register the same message, suggesting clearly that he will side with Reid against Baucus.
Roll Call adds that "Senate's Moderates Falling in Line":
Moderate Senate Democrats face increasing pressure to support a health care bill that includes a public insurance option, and many appear prepared to fall in line with Democratic leaders — provided they are presented with a bill that can withstand public scrutiny in their home states....
To seal the endorsement of moderates, Democratic leaders are working to wrap the controversial elements of reform in a politically attractive message to the centrists’ conservative-leaning constituents. That could include the addition of provisions aimed directly at problems or issues in each Senator’s state, such as tweaks to state funding formulas for federal programs, aides said.
Finally, the LA Times reports on Obama's role in this:
Reporting from Washington - Despite months of outward ambivalence about creating a government health insurance plan, the Obama White House has launched a behind-the-scenes campaign to get divided Senate Democrats to take up some version of the idea for a final vote in the coming weeks.
President Obama has cited a preference for the so-called public option. But faced with intense criticism over the summer, he strategically expressed openness to health cooperatives and other ways to offer consumers potentially more affordable alternatives to private health plans.
In the last week, however, senior administration officials have been holding private meetings almost daily at the Capitol with senior Democratic staff to discuss ways to include a version of the public plan in the healthcare bill that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) plans to bring to the Senate floor this month, according to senior Democratic congressional aides....
He has met repeatedly in private with Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine), who has floated a "trigger" proposal that would allow states to set up government plans as a fallback if commercial insurers did not control premiums.
The president has also personally discussed healthcare at least three times recently with Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), one of the most outspoken Democratic critics of the public option.
When Obama spoke by phone with Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) last week, he made a point of the breadth of support for the public option, she said in an interview. Cantwell authored a proposal to let states set up public plans, which Democrats added to the Senate Finance Committee bill on Wednesday.
Snowe's trigger isn't a substitute for a public option. Once you scratch the surface, it's obvious that the trigger isn't intended to just phase in a public option, it's intended to kill it by ensuring that the threshold for it's being triggered is never met. Cantwell's amendment is good for what it does, but it's not a substitute for a robust public option that can compete against private insurance companies. Ben Nelson doesn't have a plan, so Obama's courting him is questionable, but maybe he just likes to check in with his old friend from Nebraska. One would like to hope it's to tell him that joining a Republican filibuster against healthcare refrom would be very, very bad for Nebraska, but that seems to be a little much to hope for.
The House Progressive Block is fully committed to a robust public option, and has the numbers to back that up. Every poll that's been done in the past month--even after the August temper tantrum townhalls--show that the majority of American voters support a Medicare-like public option. That even includes Blanche Lincoln's constituents. And according to Chuck Schumer, a healthy majority of Senate Democrats are behind it.
Winning the war on a robust public option, on real healthcare reform that at least puts us on a path to universal, affordable, comprehensive coverage shouldn't be this hard. There's no need to settle for "some version" of a public option.