The WaPo is reporting that Senate Majority Leader Reid has decided he wants to include an opt-out public plan in the health-care bill he'll bring to the floor:
Democratic leaders in the Senate and House have concluded that a government-run insurance plan is the cheapest way to expand health coverage, and they sought Friday to rally support for the idea, prospects for which have gone in a few short weeks from bleak to bright.
The shift in momentum is so dramatic that many lawmakers now predict that President Obama will sign a final bill that includes some form of government-sponsored insurance for people who do not receive coverage through the workplace. Even Democrats with strong reservations about expanding government's role in the health-care system say they are reconsidering the approach in hopes of making low-cost plans broadly available.
The leadership in the House and Senate are trying to pass "expansive versions of the public option" that are as similar as possible to smooth the process when the two bills are merged.
{House Majority whip James} Clyburn said the debate is no longer whether to include a public option, but "whether or not we will get this form of a public option or that form of a public option." Since the talk of "death panels" at town-hall meetings in August, Clyburn said, the political climate has changed as voters have come to understand "that all of this foolishness was just that -- foolishness. Nobody wants to pull the plug on Grandma."
Even Mary Landrieu, who was so firmly opposed to the public option up until today, seems to now find opt-out acceptable. The Republicans, including Olympia Snowe, are all still firmly opposed.
Reid's strategy is to try to persuade his Democratic caucus to allow a health-care bill with an opt-out public plan to come to the floor, even if there is no guarantee that all 60 senators who caucus with Democrats would ultimately vote for it. All 40 Senate Republicans, including Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (Maine), who supported the Finance Committee bill, have pledged to block legislation that includes a government insurance plan. Reid must unite Democrats to break that filibuster...
Reid's calculation is that it could be more difficult to add a public option through amendments on the Senate floor than to include it in the bill and force opponents to try to find the votes to strip it out. Manley said Reid would spend the weekend canvassing Democrats on the opt-out idea and would probably decide Monday whether to include it in the Senate bill.
And for all their talk about wanting to keep costs down, will they support the plan most proven to be cost-effective? Don't bet on it:
Because a government-run plan would be dedicated to holding down costs and would lack a profit motive, congressional budget analysts predict that it could reduce the cost of expanding coverage to people who don't have it by as much as $100 billion over the next decade.
In the House, Pelosi was still trying to line up votes for the most cost-effective version of the public plan, one that would pay providers based on Medicare rates...
Senior Democrats said it was still unclear whether that idea would prevail. While support for a "robust" public option is strong, they said, other issues are muddying the waters. For example, as many as 20 votes hinge on resolving a battle over abortion that has pitted an unyielding abortion-rights faction against antiabortion Democrats who want to make sure no federal money is used to pay for the procedure.