In this afternoon's flurry of activity around reports that Harry Reid (D-NV) was leaning toward including the public option in the Senate's version of the health insurance reform bill, Tom Carper (D-DE) was quoted as saying he believed there'd be an option -- not even necessarily public, in the governmental sense -- that included the so-called "opt-out" provision, among other features.
One of the less persuasive arguments (in my view) made for the "opt out" that was all the rage last week was that despite all the rhetoric, no state's politicians would ever dare to opt out of something so potentially beneficial and popular. And that if indeed a state did opt out, the citizens would become so jealous of their neighbors that they'd shortly demand a reversal.
Of course, in an age when there are no repercussions for elected officials publicly questioning the validity of President Obama's birth certificate, or comparing him to Hitler, I'm not sure how anyone reaches the conclusion so confidently that there are things that are simply too outrageous for Republicans to even contemplate.
But as one might say, when you're going to China, you need a Nixon. So perhaps it should come as no surprise that when you need high profile public validation of the possibility of opting out, you can turn to a would-be Blue Dog to get it.
Question: "Mr. Deeds, and would you go against some of your fellow Democrats and against the public plan?"
Creigh Deeds: "I'm not afraid of going against my fellow Democrats when I think they're wrong...Public option isn't required in my view, I think we have to do two things with health care, we have to reduce costs so more people can afford insurance and we have to increase coverage. I share those broad goals. I don't think the public option is necessary in any plan and I think Virginia...I would certainly consider opting out if that were available to Virginia. We have to find ways to increase competition in order to reduce costs..."
No one would ever dare opt out! Except a Democrat. Right next door in Virginia. The very day before he was expecting the president to come and campaign for him. And two weeks before election day.
Now, it must be noted that after the debate, Deeds claimed that all he was saying was that he'd consider the opt out, just as he would carefully consider the full universe of possibilities. Therefore, he claimed, his was an eminently reasonable position.
Whatever.
For me, the bottom line is that if a Democrat will say this two weeks before an election, how can anybody seriously believe that opting out is so beyond the pale that no one would ever dare exercise the option?
UPDATE: Many of you are objecting, reasonably enough, that this is nothing but a campaign ploy on Deeds' part. That's entirely possible. But I have to ask why anyone would, two weeks prior to the election, make such a ploy if the truth is that the public option will be so incredibly popular that he'd never dare really pull the trigger on his rhetoric. Wouldn't that make it an incredibly and obviously bad campaign ploy? I know he's been a terrible candidate, but really. It's so popular that no one would ever dare say it, unless they did, in which case they'd never do it because it would be too unpopular to do, which explains why he said it.
That's where we are?
