Call it the optional option:
Washington (CNN) — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced Monday that he intends to move forward with a health care bill including a public insurance option allowing states to opt out.
Reid, a Nevada Democrat, has been melding legislation from the more conservative Senate Finance Committee and the more liberal Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. The Health Committee included a form of the public option in its bill; the Finance Committee did not.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has insisted that the House of Representatives will pass a health care reform bill including a public option.
President Obama is “pleased that the Senate has decided to include a public option for health coverage,” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said in a written statement.
“He supports the public option because it has the potential to play an essential role in holding insurance companies accountable through choice and competition,” Gibbs said.
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Reid’s health care bill, which will be given a cost assessment by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, also includes a provision from the Finance Committee bill allowing for the creation of nonprofit health care cooperatives that would negotiate collective insurance coverage for members.
Reid hopes his compromise will appeal both to liberal senators insisting on a public option and to conservatives wary of a government-run plan, several Democratic sources said.
The sources said Reid does not have firm commitments for the compromise from 60 senators, the number required to break a Republican-led filibuster.
It is likely he would need that number for even a vote to begin Senate debate.
So let the next round in this debacle begin.
