The Not-So-Public Public Option

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) conceded this week that the public option would be dropped from the Senate health care bill, a.k.a. HarryCare (somewhat akin to the Japanese word for ritual suicide, “harakiri.”) The public option decision was made after what supposedly were intense closed-door negotiations between moderate and liberal Democrats to clear a significant hurdle standing in the way of the bill’s passage. Not much leeway seems to have been given, though, because what emerged was merely a government-run public option by another name.

Under the new plan, private insurance companies will be “encouraged” by the government to develop “non-profit” national insurance policies that would be negotiated by the Office of Personnel Management, the agency that currently oversees insurance policies for federal workers. If at some point these private firms are unable to deliver the type of coverage the government prefers, then a government public option would be invoked. There are no details as to just what exactly the government would deem “acceptable policies,” but it is likely that the bar will be kept just high enough to allow the government to step in with its own plan no matter what happens. In reality, it’s a Hobson’s Choice between the former government-run “public option” and the newer government-run “national health plan.”

To add insult to injury, a deluge of new regulations await private insurers, including a preposterous rule that will require them to spend at least 90 cents of every dollar they collect in premiums on medical services for their customers. By comparison, Medicare and Medicaid don’t come close to even half that target.

So, for the feigned indignation of Senate liberals who bemoan the death of the public option, this new plan will give them exactly what they want — government control over how private insurers develop policies and over how they spend the money they make, if any.

Additionally, Democrats are also proposing to push millions of uninsured onto Medicare rolls, which Republicans accurately describe as forcing more people onto a sinking ship — the program is already fiscally irredeemable. If this multi-trillion dollar legislative Titanic becomes law, we hope that voters will remember the party who recklessly steered our health care ship into this fiscal iceberg.