Lately there has been a lot of consideration of the public option in the Senate, but the type of public option which the House will pass also remains unknown. With the House only needing a simple majority to pass a bill it is probable that there will be some type of public option. Greg Sargent reports that there does not appear to be enough votes at present for the more robust option favored by many liberals which would pay at Medicare rates plus five percent:
The House Dem leadership has conducted its preliminary whip count and has tallied up less than 200 likely Yes votes in support of a health care reform bill with a robust public option, well short of the 218 needed for passage, according to an internal whip count document I’ve obtained.
The document — compiled by the office of House leader James Clyburn — was distributed privately at a meeting between Clyburn and House progressives today where the fate of the public option was the subject of some contentious debate, with liberals demanding that House leaders push harder to win over votes.
Clyburn spokesperson Kristie Greco would only say: “We currently do not have the votes for a robust public option.”
More information was given on where the vote now stands:
The document shows that 47 House Dems are committed No votes, and eight are Leaning No, for a total of 55. That means of 256 House Dems, just under 200 remain, and a dozen of those are listed as undecided. The bill needs 218 votes for passage.
It remains a great irony of the health care debate that the more conservative members of Congress, who claim to be most concerned about the cost of health care, are the ones who are fighting the most against aspects of health care reform, such as a robust public option, which would bring about lower costs.
While the debate over the public option in the House now appears to have come down to whether reimbursement is tied to Medicare rates, I remain disappointed that the public option as now discussed does not contain provisions to replace Medicaid. This was an idea proposed for the public option in in the past.
Actually I’m open to a variety of ways to do this, but if we are to truly aim for universal health care coverage we should work towards eliminating the status quo of many being left in a program which does not provide adequate care. I would be happy if Medicaid patients were placed in the public option, or if they were given subsidies to allow them to purchase private insurance on the insurance exchanges. I would even accept the Republican proposal to give them vouchers, provided the vouchers were large enough to allow them to actually purchase private insurance.
