Sam Stein on HuffPo is reporting the latest possible compromise on the public option:
Senate Democrats have begun discussions on a compromise approach to health care reform that would establish a robust, national public option for insurance coverage but give individual states the right to opt out of the program.
More, after the fold.
But instead of starting with no national public option and giving state governments the right to develop their own, the newest compromise approaches the issue from the opposite direction: beginning with a national public option and giving state governments the right not to have one.
snip
How such a system would work is still being debated, according to those with knowledge of the proposal. But theoretically, the "opt-out" approach would start with everyone having access to a public plan. What kind of public plan isn't yet clear. States would then have the right to vote -- either by referendum, legislature, or simply a gubernatorial decree -- to make the option unavailable in their health care exchanges.
Sam Stein on HuffPo
What this would mean is that much of the Deep South would opt out. The coasts would stay in and most of the upper middle west/Great Lakes states.
I prefer a real national plan. Is the need for 60 votes worth sentencing many working people in the South to insurance company exploitation? What do you think?
"It is clearly much better than triggers and [Carper's] opt-ins," said Richard Kirsch, executive director of the group Health Care For Americans Now. "A trigger option is a way to kill the public option and these opt ins are not effective because it leaves it up to state legislatures to set it up..."
Is better than triggers enough?
Update I: I added a poll based on a suggestion below by Earth Ling.
