Schumer: "Make no mistake . . . there will be a public option"

On yesterday's "Face the Nation," Sen. Chuck Schumer was unequivocal about the inclusion of a public option in the Senate's health care reform bill.

But make no mistake about it, the President is for this strongly. There will be a public option in the final bill, some form of it. And hopefully Chuck Grassley and I and others can come to an agreement on how that should work. We want it to be a fair level playing field, but you need something to keep the big boys honest. And the only thing that really is out there is a public option. We don’t trust the private insurance companies left to their own devices and neither do the American people. Seventy percent of the American people support a public option

Here's the full passage [pdf], in context:

I am not saying that the public option should be the only option. There are some who do say that particularly in my party. But we shouldn’t say there should be no public option. We should have this insurance exchange and let both sides compete. And let’s see which one does better.

Each one claims to have advantages. I think both will--will exist in the market. A public option may be better for some. A private insurance company may be better for others. No one is going to force anyone who has private insurance to give it up. The President has promised that over and over again. And we can come to--we can come to a middle ground.

Already, John, the House--House has proposed its plan, has a strong public option. The HELP  Committee, the other committee in the Senate doing this, has proposed a strong public option. The  Finance Committee, we’re trying to come to some compromise. But make no mistake about it, the President is for this strongly. There will be a public option in the final bill, some form of it. And hopefully Chuck Grassley and I and others can come to an agreement on how that should work. We want it to be a fair level playing field, but you need something to keep the big boys honest. And the only thing that really is out there is a public option.

There's was consternation expressed yesterday in Bonsai66's diary that Schumer was backing away from a strong public option when he says it shouldn't be the "only option," but I think he's pretty clearly saying that it HAS to be one of them. Although many of his colleagues do want single payer, it will never happen in this Senate, and Schumer is acknowledging that. Now what form is it going to take?

Look, I’ve said to Chuck Grassley and to Kent Conrad and Chairman Baucus, if— I don’t care what you call it, but whatever we have that has to compete against the private insurance companies, and, of course, I prefer a public option, but these are the minimum requirements:

First it has to be available on the first day to everybody. Second, it has to be— so there shouldn’t be a trigger, two years later, maybe we’ll have one.

Second, it has to be national. You know, I know there are co-ops in Iowa. There are even co-ops in New York. I live in one. I live in an apartment building that’s a co-op, so I’m a co-operator. But to just have one little co-op, say in Ogdensburg, New York, and say New York is covered, when 99 percent of the people have nothing, that’s no good.

Third, it has to be transparent. In other words, we want to know— the public option, the advantage is, when it makes a deal with the drug companies or big hospital association, we’ll know what it says and it will keep the insurance companies honest. They don’t make their deals public. And they— since there’s no competition, they jack up prices. And it has to have the clout to go against the big boys. Now if we could get those four things, we could do it.

Those are critical baselines for a public option, not everything that should be included, but a very fair start--national in scope, starting on day one, and transparent. He is also showing healthy skepticism toward Conrad's co-ops (which won't go anywhere with the House). There are a lot of missing details, but I think this is as much of a line in the sand as any Senator is going to be drawing on a national Sunday show for a public option. And it's a far cry better than Conrad's co-ops.

Update: HuffPo's Sam Stein has more from Schumer:

Predicting that the final bill will include a public plan, he painted the Republican Party as rigid to a fault when it comes to negotiations.

"This is where we are going to end up," he said of a health care overhaul that included a public plan. "And I think, it would be much better for the Senate Finance Committee if we did it in the committee... I think the Senate HELP committee compromised already, because you have a lot of members on the HELP committee who would've liked [the public option] to be much closer to Medicare. The idea seems to be catching everybody's imagination, and sense of fairness. And the only holdouts are sort of ideologues on the Republican side of this saying no government involvement whatsoever."

...
[T]he past week included two key breakthroughs for progressives hoping to lead the reform process. The first was the Congressional Budget Office scoring the HELP committee's proposal at a relatively slim $600 billion. Though Schumer noted that the figure could rise with amendments, he added, "what the CBO is saying, if you're a fiscal conservative you ought to be for a public option because it saves money."

The other advance was the seating of Al Franken as Senator of Minnesota, which, theoretically, should give the Democratic Party the voting margin it needs to withstand a Republican filibuster.

"I think Democrats, now that we have 60, it's an opportunity but it's a greater responsibility," said Schumer. "And unity among ourselves is very important."

Sounds like an endorsement of the Sander's approach--Dem unity to break a Republican filibuster.