Schumer resuscitates public option plan
Proposal allowing states choice of opting out of program attracts interest of moderates.
WASHINGTON — The "public option" appeared to be the rotting corpse of health care reform only two months ago, but it now looks as if Sen. Charles E. Schumer has helped to bring the proposal back to life.
Working behind the scenes over the past four weeks, the New York senator has rekindled interest among some of his moderate Democratic colleagues in establishing a government-run health care plan to compete with private insurers.
Now Democratic congressional aides say Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is likely to include a public option in the compromise reform bill that's expected to hit the Senate floor in November. And it's likely to be built around Schumer's proposal that states be allowed to opt out of the public option.
That idea appears to be a few votes short of a filibuster-proof vote of 60 senators, but Schumer is working to change all that.
"We're making progress; we're not there yet," Schumer said, noting that the public has warmed to the public option as have his colleagues.
A Washington Post-ABC News poll last week showed 57 percent of those questioned favoring the public option, up five percentage points from August.
"As people learn what it is, they like it," Schumer said. "It's not a requirement; it's a choice. If you like how an insurance company is treating you, you're fine, you can stay there. If you don't, you have an alternative. People like that idea."
The public option is the best way to keep health care costs from continuing to spiral out of control, Schumer said, given that it will set up real competition for private insurers in places where there's little today.
Of course, many Americans remain opposed to creation of any government-run health plan.
"In my district, it is still broadly opposed," said Rep. Chris Lee, R-Clarence. "It is stacking the deck in the government's favor, and I've yet to see the government run anything efficiently or effectively."
But that perception seemed more widespread only two months ago, when angry voters stormed congressional town hall meetings warning that the public option would be the concrete on the path to socialism.
At that point, congressional aides expected Reid to keep the controversial plan out of the Senate bill, even though the Senate Health, Education and Labor Committee included the option in its version of the legislation.
The Senate Finance Committee voted Sept. 29 for a bill that includes nonprofit health co-ops instead of a government plan, so Schumer floated a compromise: creating a public plan, but allowing states to opt out of it. He's been talking it up with moderates, and for a reason: The Schumer compromise gives Democrats from conservative-leaning states a way out of any argument that they were forcing a Canadian-style government-run health monopoly on an unsuspecting populace.
And as a result, moderates who have been wary of a public option, like Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., are warming to the idea.
"I am encouraged that the conversations taking place over the past week among senators who back different versions of a public option could potentially lead to a compromise," Landrieu said on Friday.
Schumer's efforts make him a hero to the grass-roots activists who fueled Barack Obama's race for the presidency, who view the public option as the litmus test of whether health care reform is the kind of change they can believe in.
"He is amazing," said Diana Cihak of Hamburg, one of the earliest local Obama organizers, who now regularly peppers her Facebook updates with calls for the public option. "He's gone above and beyond. He's doing all the work every day to get the best possible public option in the Senate bill."
Then again, to those who believe that any public option will morph into a government takeover of health care, Schumer's efforts are nothing to cheer.
A public plan will make government "both a player and the referee" in the health care marketplace, said Robert Zirkelbach, spokesman for America's Health Insurance Plans.
"And anytime an entity is both the player and the referee, there's every reason to believe there won't be fair competition," he said.
Such concerns are the reason why the Schumer plan has not yet garnered the needed 60 votes.
For one thing, the lone Republican who supported the Finance Committee version of the bill — Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine — thinks she has a better idea. She's pushing a "trigger" provision in which the public option would be available only in states where there is little health insurance competition.
Asked about the Schumer proposal in an interview with Bloomberg News late last week, Snowe said: "I'm opposed to it."
"A public option at the forefront really does put the government in a disproportionate position with respect to the industry," she added.
Schumer, meanwhile, criticized Snowe's proposal, saying: "I'd much prefer a bipartisan bill, but it must lower the cost of everyone's health care by eliminating the waste, fraud and duplication. I don't think a public plan with a trigger will do that."
Snowe's opposition would mean that Schumer's proposal would have to garner support from all 58 Democrats and two independents — and it's not clear that will happen, either.
Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., and a handful of other moderates remain critical of the public option. As a result, Reid may have to fashion a compromise that merges Schumer's proposal with Snowe's, said Ron Pollack, founding executive director of Families USA, a leading health reform advocate.
"It sounds like there's an effort being made to blend the two concepts," Pollack said.
Including some version of the public option in the Senate bill makes it much more likely it will be included in any final House-Senate compromise legislation.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and members such as Rep. Brian Higgins of Buffalo and Rep. Louise M. Slaughter of Fairport, are adamant about including a public option in the House bill.
"I don't think there's much problem" with Schumer's idea, Pelosi said Friday.
Yet the Senate's approach has long been in question — and Schumer stressed that it still is.
"People said the public option was dead two months ago, so predicting is very, very difficult," he said.
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