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Latest Health Care Reform idea: Opt out?
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AP Photo/Elaine Thompson
On our long and winding road toward health care reform, the U.S. Senate may have just added another twisting turn. This one is pretty simple.
Don't want the public option? Fine. Opt out.
The idea came from Senator Tom Carper of Delaware, and was first floated over a week ago. But now Senator Chuck Schumer of New York has picked up the idea and seems to be promoting it, saying today: "It's one of the things being very seriously considered." The senior Senator from New York is playing a pretty big role in health care reform, so if he says it's being seriously considered then I'll take his word for it.
Schumer went on to say he met with Carper "for quite a while last night" and came out of the meeting feeling "very optimistic" about a public option being included in the Senate's health care reform bill.
OK, Senator Schumer. You've got my attention.
So how would this work? it's still in the early stages, says Sam Stein at Huffington Post, but the basics are really quite simple: the U.S. government would "establish a a robust, national public option for insurance coverage but give individual states the right to opt out of the program." Any state could vote to make the public health care option unavailable to the people of their state (either by referendum or legislative vote, possibly allowing the governor decide).
Although news of this idea is flying furiously around the blogosphere, it's too early to say if it will gain enough support to have a chance. But If it's included in the final health care reform bill it could be fascinating to watch what happens. If nothing else, it would allow all of us to see if a robust public option does indeed force insurers to be more competitive, by comparing a state that has it to a state that opted out. It could make for some interesting elections, as people decide if their state government made the right choice. It could even make some people re-think living in their state altogether.
The opt out idea is so simple that at first take it's quite appealing- those who don't want it don't get it, those who want it do. But for me there's a bottom line, and it has never changed. I am one of those people who truly believes that every American citizen deserves health care. No matter who you are, where you came from, what you look like, what you believe in. If you're an American you deserve to have health care.
I'm willing to take any long and winding road, if it leads to that door.
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