Another public option plan will be unveiled in the Senate next week in hopes of finding a compromise that can get 60 votes. This one is being designed by Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), in consultation with Sens. Snowe, Lieberman, and Lincoln. In an inadvertent bit of truth, the article notes that Carper "is also reaching out to other Republicans":
The 62-year-old former governor said he is trying to "thread the needle" between conservative Democrats such as Blanche Lincoln (Ark.) and Independent Joe Lieberman (Conn.), who oppose a public option, and liberal senators such as Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Roland Burris (D-Ill.), who are insisting on it.
Carper, a junior member of the Finance Committee, was tight-lipped on the details of his plan, but noted that he has been talking extensively with Snowe....
Carper has been working on variations of the public option for months. Recently, he has touted a so-called hammer public option that he believes answers centrists' criticisms that the public option in Reid's bill is government-run and government-funded. The public option would kick in for states where insurance companies fail to meet standards of availability and affordability of plans. Unlike Snowe's trigger proposal, which would give insurers at least one year to satisfy those requirements, Carper's public option would start the first year the bill goes into effect. States might be permitted to opt into the public option even if the benchmarks are met.
Under Carper's proposal, the bill would establish a national public insurance program founded by the government but managed by a non-governmental board. In addition, the plan would be unable to access any taxpayer dollars beyond its initial seed money. This public option would operate alongside private insurance and, potentially, the nonprofit healthcare cooperatives and state-based public plans authorized by Reid's bill.
Maybe that will be crippled enough to attract some more "centrist" Democrats to support it. Honestly, in what sense would a plan like that still be really a public option?
One bit of good news at least: Snowe and Lieberman are expressing their happiness with the CBO's cost analysis of Reid’s bill and the fact that it would cover 30 million more people without raising premiums. Being who he is though, Joe Lieberman just has to add this little slam against the public option, which he still opposes:
"The public option is an unnatural and dangerous appendage to healthcare reform," he said.
Joe knows all about unnatural and dangerous appendages, being that he is one to the Democratic caucus.