Public option?

The public option, the dead provision from health reform, is back as a form of reducing the deficit. When the public option was first proposed it was as a way to prevent liberals from defecting, they didn’t anyways, and the people wanted it. So house liberals introduced it again. (Long live the public option!) The senate will have to vote on their dread, the public option. As a form of deficit reduction the public option will save $68 billion by 2020. This is a small hole in the deficit but anything will help.

Liberals, like me, are thrilled because this would mean competition and an end to the monopolies. This is not to say the affordable health care act of 2010 was not good. The affordable health care act added millions of uninsured Americans and ended pre-existing conditions for children immediately after it became law. The public option would make the act complete. The public option would stop industry abuses and would not be a government takeover of health care.

The tea party would not be as thrilled: as they would see it as a government out of control. That argument was made throughout the health care debate; only in they were in nice terms uncivil at times. This could if gained momentum spark the ugliness of the health care debate including (most serious to less) acts of random violence, death threats, suggesting fascism, and racist signs. The Glen Becks of the world would be all over this and we don’t want to distract from jobs. The public option is a job saver though and should be treated as such. Any jobs bill should try and have a public option as that at the very least would be the thing to change and not other crucial things, such as the tea party’s favorite thing spending.

The public option has always come back from the dead because of its popularity and the carries of the torch, house liberals. There were headlines throughout the debate, long live the public option, back from the dead, and such. This in March made the Rachel Maddow show have it proclaimed “the public option is dead… long live the public option”. If history has taught us anything the senate will kill it and the house will keep bringing it back. The president shouldn’t push for it, he should be focused on jobs.

The mood among liberals is our views aren’t being listened to and we are expected to act as a wing of the Democratic Party. If we are to energize then the public option would be the perfect way to do that. Liberals are key to the success of the midterms, we need some answers from our leadership, if we will keep anything. Netroots Nation was a perfect example of how they say they wanted a public option but votes weren’t there. If you want to convince us of that then bring the public option for a vote in both houses of congress.