The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, sided with his party's liberals yesterday and announced that he would include a government-run insurance plan in health-care legislation that he plans to take to the Senate floor within a few weeks.
His proposal came with an escape hatch: A state could refuse to participate in the public-insurance plan by adopting a law to opt out. Even so, the announcement was a turning point in the debate over how much of a role government should play in an overhauled health-care system, and it set the stage for a test of Democratic party unity.
With Republicans united for now in opposition to any bill including a public option, Reid needs support from all members of his caucus -- 58 Democrats and two independents -- to take up the legislation. Aides said yesterday that he appeared to be short of that goal, lacking firm commitments from several members of the caucus.
Should Reid prevail, both houses of Congress would be poised to act on bills including a government-run plan to compete with private insurers in selling health coverage to consumers. The House is still weighing the details of its approach, but Democratic leaders there have made clear they will include a government plan in their version of the legislation.
Just weeks ago, the prospects for such an approach seemed remote, reflecting all-out opposition from conservatives to what they considered an excessive government role in the economy and a lack of enthusiasm from many moderate Democrats. But the idea has consistently drawn strong support in national polls and has the White House's backing though not its particularly active public support.
"The best way to move forward is to include a public option with the opt-out provision for states," said Reid, D-Nev. "I believe that a public option can achieve the goal of bringing meaningful reform to our broken system."
Reid's decision was acclaimed by liberal organizations such as MoveOn, Families USA and Health Care for America Now, a coalition that includes labor unions and civil-rights groups.
But he lost the one Republican who had given Democratic efforts a tinge of bipartisanship, Sen. Olympia J. Snowe of Maine. She has been pushing for a different approach in which a government plan would become available only if states did not make progress in reducing insurance premiums and covering more of their people.
"I am deeply disappointed with the majority leader's decision to include a public option as the focus of the legislation," Snowe said. "I still believe that a fallback, safety-net plan, to be triggered and available immediately in states where insurance companies fail to offer plans that meet the standards of affordability, could have been the road toward achieving a broader bipartisan consensus in the Senate."
Reid and his aides provided few details of his proposal. They said the public plan would be national in scope and would be available on the first day that major provisions of the health-care legislation take effect, in 2013.
The government plan would negotiate payment rates with doctors, hospitals and other health-care providers. Some liberal Democrats, including the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, have said that payments should be pegged to Medicare rates, which could save money for the government and for consumers.
Reid's announcement drew mixed reaction from state legislators in North Carolina who, should the proposal pass, could have to decide on the state's participation.
Legislators "would need to spend some time on it before they would commit to it one way or the other," said Bill Holmes, a spokesman for Rep. Joe Hackney, the Democratic speaker of the N.C. House.
State Rep. Earline Parmon, D-Forsyth, said she's not enthusiastic about the opt-out provision of Reid's plan. But she said she supports universal health care for all Americans, and would vote to have the state in a government-run plan.
However, State Sen. Peter Brunstetter, R-Forsyth, said he opposes a government-run plan because of concerns about "levels of bureaucracy" in federally run programs.
Journal reporter John Hinton contributed to this story.
Email
Facebook
Google
Twitter
Favorites
More
Advertisement