Is the healthcare reform bill doomed without the public option?

  Since the news broke that the president may be willing to drop the “public option” in the healthcare reform bill to try to win over the hearts and minds of its opponents I have wondered whether dropping the “public option” would cause the president to lose some of his liberal supporters of this legislation.

  In my opinion dropping the “public option” is a good start but only a start in the effort to pass what I would consider an acceptable healthcare reform bill, this would definitely be a good stepping stone to bridge the gap between those who are for and those who are against the bill. We are now beginning to hear that if the president does drop the “public option” that he may in fact lose more liberal votes than what he would gain by dropping the option. One representative claimed that a bill without a “public option” would be unacceptable to many liberals.

“It would be very, very difficult,” to support a bill that lacked a public health insurance option, Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson said Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union, “because, without the public option, we’ll have the same number of people uninsured. If the insurance companies wanted to insure these people now, they’d be insured.

Johnson added that “an option that would give the private insurance companies a little competition” is “the only way” to be sure that insurance is available to low income people and people without employer-provided coverage.

  More and more Democrats are also echoing that sentiment, including Nancy Pelosi:

“There is strong support in the House for a public option,” Pelosi, of California, said in a statement. “A public option is the best option to lower costs, improve the quality of health care, ensure choice and expand coverage.”

  She is not alone, Maxine Waters:

“very troubled to hear that after months of negotiations, supposedly moving toward meaningful health-care reform, the public option may in fact be off the table.”

  Jay Rockefeller:

“is the only proven way to guarantee that all consumers have affordable, meaningful, and accountable options,”

  Stuart Rothenberg:

“wants to back away and find a way to say that they will support a public option at some point and bring the Democratic base along with them,”

  Raul Grijalva:

Health-care reform can’t happen “without a robust public option,” he said in a statement

  And the list goes on and on and it seems to be growing every day. The president’s plan is in serious trouble here. By admitting that he may not be against eliminating the “public option” he has admitted that the town hall protesters are real, everyday, average Americans that need to be listened to and not just a bunch of GOP paid hacks bent on bringing down the president’s plan for political reasons. The opponents of this bill have legitimate concerns and the president now realizes it. He must make concessions if he wants to pass any reform and this is the logical starting point. But this starting point is totally unacceptable to the far left who wants government to control as much of the lives of the public as possible.

  One Democrat representative even went so far as to say he didn’t care what his constituents thought about the “public option” he was going to vote for it anyway. I find his words to be the most deplorable of all, as a representative, even more so than a senator, he is supposed to vote the way his district wants him to. He is not supposed to vote based on the idea that he knows what is best for them because he is smarter than them. He is supposed to reflect the will of his constituents. He doesn’t seem to understand what the title “representative” means, he would probably rather be called an “overseer.”

  But the larger point here is that healthcare reform, at least in this over-reaching form, is in serious trouble. In order to gain enough votes for passage the bill is going to have to be altered and the public option is the first aspect of this bill that must be eliminated. The president knows this and he has floated a trial balloon. But the far left is not going to be receptive to this compromise. It doesn’t appear as if the president is going to be able to find any middle ground on this bill.

  In the end his own party’s unwillingness to compromise on this issue may be what finally unravels this bill. It is going to be interesting to see how this plays out. If the “public option” is eliminated from the bill he may not get the votes to pass what he considers a vital part of his domestic agenda. However if he leaves the “public option” in the bill and the bill is passed in spite of what a majority is in favor of, his party faces serious repercussions in November of 2010. The president is walking a tightrope here between what the people want and what the far left in his party wants.

  In a perfect world these two divides will be too far to bridge and the whole healthcare reform bill will have to be scrapped and sent back to the drawing board. I do not think, even with the trouble this bill now appears to be in, that scrapping this bill will be an option. I think that he will succumb to party insiders and that could be his final undoing.

  This bill is still a long way from passage, the fight has just begun, Who knows what twists and turns still lie ahead. It will be interesting to see if the man who claimed that he would bring America back together will be able to do just that on this issue. It seems to me that his party will not let him compromise and bring the American people together to support this bill.