The Return of the Public Option

Remember the days when the public option was a total cop-out? Then remember the days when it was the liberal line in the sand? Co-ops? Forget 'em! Then remember how it wasn't included in the Finance Committee's bill? But then came back in when Reid merged the HELP and Finance bills? Lieberman. Nelson. It seemed to be dead. And then there was the 'forget the public option, this is a total trade up' Medicare buy-in, which raised spirits. Then Lieberman again. Then it was dead, with nothing to replace it. But fine.... pass the bill. Then Brown. Which brought us Pass the Damn Bill.

and then, well not sure what really's been going on the last month. Oh I know what I've read and heard, but it seems to change daily. So much so that it all the reporting and blogging on health care often seemed to be just a random walk.

But apparently the public option is back on. The administration apparently isn't too keen on it, but maybe they're not all that opposed. But if Reid supports it for reconciliation, and the Administration is fine with it if Reid is fine with it, and if the number of Senators in favor keeps growing.... then who knows.

I'm still skeptical. I think that the administration is hell-bent on being seen as reaching out for bipartisanship, and this would probably not do the trick. But it will be a hard hit for the administration come November if they have to actually scuttle the public option. Liberal dems barely feel like turning out as it is. And it is one thing to say "we need to drop the public option cause it doesn't have the votes" and another thing to say "we need to drop the public option because even though we have the votes the administration wants to not piss off the Republicans."


Update: Ezra Klein believes that, as long as we're being fantastical, we should go the route of the Medicare buy-in. Which seems pretty fine by me.