Carroll Commencement
Fairborn commencement
Badin graduation
Ellen Belcher is the Dayton Daily News opinion pages editor. She writes about state government, education, the environment, higher education and all things Dayton.
Martin Gottlieb is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He focuses on the political process itself and does such national issues as war, the economy, taxes and Social Security, as well as a hodge-podge of local and state issues.Home > Blogs > A Matter of Opinion > Archives > 2009 > December > 11
Friday, December 11, 2009
Editorial: Brown’s flexibility on public option is a good sign
Two headlines in different publications about the same event:
“Public option keeps toehold in Senate deal on health bill.”
“Democrats near agreement to give up public plan.”
You know it’s a compromise when people can’t agree on how to summarize it. U.S. Senate Democrats announced Tuesday night, Dec. 8, that five liberals and five moderates among them had reached an agreement about the public option. (Republicans are out of the picture; long story.)
Among the five liberals is Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, a staunch supporter of the public option.
The term refers to a government-run insurance plan that would be made available basically to people who don’t have insurance at work. The idea is not only to provide those people a decent option, but to help bring down insurance costs generally by increasing competition.
It’s only one part of a historic overhaul of health insurance being pushed by President Barack Obama. With the Senate agreement, the Democrats’ death-defying run toward passage of the large bill continues for another day.
Sen. Brown didn’t commit flatly to the compromise. But he had good reason to like it.
The group of 10 embraced his long-held desire to expand Medicare to people under 55 who are willing to pay. That’s another kind of public option. (Truth is, to a lot of people, the best way to reform the American health system would be to extend Medicare to everybody.)
In lieu of the public option, the compromise would have private insurers provide government-negotiated policies for individuals. A public option would only kick in if the private insurers don’t deliver.
It’s good to see compromise happening and to see Sen. Brown participating. Though many of his supporters have long been wedded to the public option, his job is to make things happen, not to posture as the upholder of a cause.
The real liberal task at hand is getting many millions more people insured, which any version of the bill does, while trying to bring down costs.
Besides this excursion into compromise, Sen. Brown just took one into bipartisanship. Sort of.
Sen. Tom Coburn is the red-hot conservative from Oklahoma who says to seniors that if the Democrats’ health plan passes, “You’re gonna die sooner.”
That quote isn’t about the public option. But he’s against that, too. He proposed to require members of Congress to sign up for it if it’s created. His idea was apparently to embarrass the Democrats, showing their unwillingness to be covered by a plan they’re creating.
But, since they’re only proposing it as an option, it’s hard to see why they should be embarrassed.
At any rate, Sen. Brown immediately embraced the Coburn amendment, as did a few other Democrats. And, despite the inclusion of Sen. Al Franken among those few, nobody seemed to be kidding.
Sen. Brown long ago swore off taking the excellent health insurance plan that members of Congress get. He said he couldn’t justify that so long as tens of millions of Americans remained uninsured.
He was apparently looking forward to the public option as an improvement upon his coverage as the spouse of an employee of a newspaper up north.
So, when he compromised away the public option, you know he was doing serious work. Some might point out that he’d qualify for the Medicare buy-in. But, really, after all these years of sacrifice, he can hardly be accused of acting out of selfish economic concerns.
Permalink | Comments (30) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Health Care, National Politics, Ohio politics
