Obama Gets It, The Public Gets It…Congress Should Get It
The health care debate is very, very weird. Obama and his advisers are doing a good job of keeping their eye on the ball by viewing health care reform as primarily a fiscal policy that is our only hope to stop the expanding health care sector from taking over our economy. It so happens that the public massively supports a so-called “public option” which is our best chance to reduce costs because it would introduce a big government supplier into the health care market, which could bargain down costs and focus on providing health care as opposed to screening out sick people so as to make as much money as possible, which is what private insurers primarily do.
Obama supports a public plan — or something close — because otherwise “health reform” just turns into the government subsidizing a bunch of people buying private health insurance without any real reforms besides expanded coverage.
And yet, the public plan is see as the Rubicon that many centrist senators — including Democrats — won’t cross, for fear of offending the interests who would lose out from a cheaper, more efficient health care system.
And while it’s depressing that there actually may be just enough senators to block actual reforms, one would hope that the popular President and the public actively supporting a particular policy option could sway the more craven of the bunch.
