I have some breaking news on health reform. Today, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced that health care legislation will include a public option, however, individual states will be allowed to opt out of the plan. Under this provision, states will be allowed to determine whether the public option is right for them, and if not, they will not be forced to offer the public plan. It looks like Olympia Snowe, the lone Republican supporter of health reform, has stated that she will not support Senator Reid's plans, and wants the public option completely out of the legislation. A link to the article is posted below. Let me know what you think the ramifications of this announcement will be for health reform.
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http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/10/27/health.care/index.html
I was watching CNN today and this issue came up about the "opt-out public option" provision and how Lieberman is going to vote to debate on the bill but would join a Republican filibuster to block the vote if the public option is still there. They need Lieberman's vote as well as other Conservative Dems in order to get the full 60 votes to avoid a filibuster, but I'm not sure at this point if they will get it since it seems that all the Republicans are against the public option. I also am disappointed in Lieberman's affiliations since he used to be a Democrat and it just reminds me of his turn on his party during the election season. I think it's also sad that this is history in the making yet people are so "scared" of the public option and "government takeover." The other day, I had a nice conversation with the Cal perimeter bus driver and he was talking about health care reform and asked me, "Why is it that people don't want this public option? If you already have health care, why would you want to stop people like me from getting it?" It just reminded me that we need to humanize the issue a little more, amidst all the debate on costs and bureaucracy.
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