luke warm Posted October 8, 2009 Report Share Posted October 8, 2009 A health care compromise that would establish a national public option for insurance coverage that individual states could opt out of, is being "very seriously considered" by Senate Democrats, a key Democratic lawmakers said on Thursday. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) told MSNBC that he and his colleagues have discussed the "opt-out" public option compromise as a way to get a bill past a Republican filibuster. The proposal is designed to get the support of progressive members of the Democratic Caucus -- who are committed to a government-run insurance option -- and conservative Democrats who are worried about what a public plan would have on the private markets in their states. "[The opt-out] is one of the things being very seriously considered," said Schumer. "I'm not going to -- we have a range of things we're considering. Senator Tom Carper (D-Del.) and I met for quite a while last night and made progress and talked to a large number of members last night, yesterday. And I am optimistic that there will be some kind of public option in the bill the president signs. I'm very optimistic." "It is being discussed," said one progressive strategist who has been working on reform with both the White House and Congress. "In the end obviously, the goal and near-term exercise is to get to the bargaining table and get to the conference committee between the Senate and House with the strongest position [on the public plan] possible." How such a system would work is still being debated, according to those with knowledge of the proposal. But theoretically, the "opt-out" approach would start with everyone having access to a public plan. What kind of public plan isn't yet clear. States would then have the right to vote - either by referendum, legislature, or simply a gubernatorial decree - to make the option unavailable in their health care exchanges.huffington Also talked about here:wsjanother huffingtonguardian, u.k. And as Ezra Klein puts it:It means, in other words, that the blue states get the public option at full strength and the red states get to ignore it entirely.washington post Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hrothgar Posted October 8, 2009 Report Share Posted October 8, 2009 NAte Silver has a great piece on this http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/10/opt...ion-purism.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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