Clip File: Last Chance for the Public Option?

Reports of its demise could be premature.

Writing in The American Prospect, Paul Waldman suggests that when push comes to shove conservative Democrats may prefer to side with a Democratic president than with the political opportunists who are trying to bring him down.

If it could turn back the clock, the Obama administration would probably go back to late November and undertake an elaborate war game on health-care reform. It would lock its smartest people away in a secure location for a week or so and have them play out every conceivable scenario and subplot, detailing plans for all eventualities. Then, when the time came, it would be prepared for anything.

Administration officials don't appear to have done that. But if nothing else, they should have been able to predict that the public option -- a Medicare-like program from which Americans could chose to get their health insurance -- would eventually become the ideological flashpoint of the entire debate. You didn't have to be a genius to see that coming.

Though it took a while, the public option is now at the center of the discussion. Among other things, this means that progressives are finally getting to participate, beyond defending the administration against the ridiculous claims of critics. People who don't like the public option are hurrying to declare it dead, but it may yet have a chance.

I think the mistake was more profound than a bad sales job on the public option. The public option is a flawed idea, made worse by being difficult to explain. The decision to open with the public option also had the effect of skewing the debate to the right. "Medicare for All" would have been easy to understand and much harder to oppose. The public option is all we have. If Waldman is right, we have one more chance to get it passed.

The rest of the story: Last Chance for the Public Option? by Paul Waldman (The American Prospect 2009-08-25)