Some blogger posted a while back, someone more knowledgable than I, about how the HCR bill had 3 legs, and if you knocked any one out, the whole thing tottered. So:
1. You want to cover more people, force insurance to take people with pre-existing conditions and those who lose job insurance. The only way to do this is to subsidize. You can only subsidize if you force everyone to take part, so that some people pay for those who can’t afford or who get sicker. So, you have to force everyone to join the system or it doesn’t work.
2. To force everyone, you have to make it affordable (you can’t get blood from a stone, etc.), so you need price controls, rationing, all the other stuff to keep prices down and make progressive premiums possible.
3. To do this, you almost have to have a gov. run option, because no other program could absorb all those costs.
so, if they public option is off the table, the entire edifice comes tumbling down. Not to mention the far-lefties who just won’t stand for there being no public option. And the elderly who still suspect that Medicare is going to be rationed/benefits cut/out of pocket raised. So _any_ program is going to be hard to sell, if you can even work out how the hell it’s going to work at all.
My guess, reading a lot of analysts smarter than me: some very superficial, useless window dressing, the far left enraged, the Dem brand damaged terribly, bloodbath in ‘10, GOP re-takes the House and gets a filibuster-doable Senate, Obama forced to tack center, where the forgiving public, who gets tired of being called racist, re-elects him in ‘12 and hands the GOP the Senate. 6 years of stalemate and gridlock, which ain’t a bad thing.
related:
Hot Air: Top Dem: Public Option is dead?
Hot Air: Public Option is Dead
Around The Sphere: It’s Dead, Jim
Yankee World: Uncle Jay Explains ‘Decorum’
Health Care BS: Public Option Meets Death Panel
Wellsy’s World: Public option may be dropped from health care reform bill
Blog de KingShamus: Obama is dropping the public option?
The Substratum: RHINOCare
The Substratum: Lipstick on a Pig
Politics and Such~ ObamaCare: One Part Government Control, Two Parts Attack on Big-Insurance
Michelle Malkin: White House public option ploy: A trial balloon, not a white flag
Anwyn’s Notes in the Margin: Don’t Fall For It
Conservative Cabbie: Is The Public Option On Healthcare Dead?
A Solitary Conspiracy: Is the Public Option Dead?
The American Catholic: Government Health Care Means Rationed Health Care
Hot Air: White flag or trial balloon?
DaTechguy’s Blog: Great tea party kid don’t get cocky
Thoughts Of A Conservative Christian: White House public option ploy
NObama Blog: White House public option ploy: A trial balloon, not a white flag
Scared Monkeys: Obamacare White Flag
Matters of Truth: Obama Resistance Grows, Goodbye Feddie, & The Delusional Arlen Spector
Stop The ACLU: Public Option Dead on Healthcare?
Mcnorman’s Weblog: Sebelius Folds, Does John Hacker Know This?
Harrington Report: Dems Drop Public Option
Nice Deb: Out: Public Option In: Health Care Co-ops
NEOAVATARA: Obama’s Retreat: The Public Option Is Dead
Are You Freaking Stupid?: Dem Senator: Public option is dead
Dean Esmay: Government Takeover Of Health Care No Longer An “Option”
POLITISITE: Dem Senator: Public option is dead
Classical ValuesGovernment Take
threedonia.com: Signaling defeat?