The only thing we know for sure about the health care reform debate is that it’s a nail-biter.
What we don’t know is whether, in the final bill, nail-biting will be covered, particularly if it’s pre-existing nail-biting.
The latest news from the never- ending story is that there’s a whole new plan. The public option is apparently out, mostly, although not completely.
An expansion of Medicare is in. An expansion of Medicaid was in briefly, but it was gone by late Tuesday afternoon, long before Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was announcing his “broad agreement” Tuesday night.
The centerpiece of the new plan, replacing the public option, would be a national insurance plan modeled on the federal plan that covers federal workers. Yes, that’s the same plan that covers members of Congress.
If you’re confused, that’s because at this point of the game, no one knows for sure who’s winning or who’s losing or if we’ll ever even know the score.
Did Senate Democrats capitulate? Was it an end run?
Does anyone know?
If Senate Democrats look confused, that’s because they are. As Reid was announcing broad agreement, many Democrats weren’t even aware of what was broadly being agreed to.
Certainly, Reid is desperate to get a bill passed. To do that, he needs the votes of all 60 Democrats, including Joe Lieberman, who’s not exactly a Democrat and who’s not exactly sure why he’s against the public option, except that he says he is.
And so, in the search for 60 votes, Democrats have, in the old style, apparently agreed to kill — or at least seriously injure — the public option in order to save it.
Here’s the strange part: There are some liberals now telling each other that losing a much-compromised, extremely weak public option is actually a good thing. And stranger still, they could be right, although I’m not sure that’s the way to bet.
The details are still being hammered out, of course — this time by the Democrats’ Team of 10, a group composed of five liberals and five moderates, which is now being expanded to a Temporary Group of 12, with one more liberal and one more moderate being thrown in.
It reprises the old bipartisan Senate Finance Committee Gang of Six, which you may recall. I hope you don’t. It was a long time ago when they were futilely debating the bill — sometime around the August uprisings.
You want strange? The Medicare option is reportedly being pushed by — of all people — Howard Dean. It was Dean who had been saying that a bill without the public option wasn’t worth voting for.
Some are calling the new plan Medicare for More, which would allow eligible people ages 55 to 64 to buy into Medicare. It’s not Medicare for All, which would expand Medicare to everyone, but it goes at least part of the way.
Dean has pushed for the Medicare plan to go into effect immediately. It would be hard to argue that Democrats were out to destroy it at the same time they were voting to put more people on the rolls. It would also require insurance companies to compete directly with a new class of Medicare enrollees, which was the whole point of the public option.
Meanwhile, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a strong advocate of a strong public option, warned public-option opponents that they’re going to end up with a more liberal plan.
If it seems late in the game to be changing the rules, it is. But whose rules were we playing by before?
Everyone seems to have his own rulebook. President Barack Obama needs a plan to pass. He needs 60 votes, and he needs to get them without offending his base.
Liberal Democrats may be willing to accept the Medicare option because it does give them a government plan to hold down private- insurance costs.
Moderate Democrats are looking for any bill that doesn’t have “public” and “option” in it.
Conservative Republicans are ready to vote no, whatever the plan. Democrats will point out they were for Medicare before they were against it.
Moderate Republicans, meaning both Republican senators from Maine, may vote for the bill. Check to see if it includes Olympia Snowe’s trigger (not, by the way, covered by the Second Amendment).
And then, of course, there’s Lieberman — independent Democrat Republican independent — who is happy simply to have made life miserable for his former compatriots in the Democratic Party.
Reid has already sent the new bill to the Congressional Budget Office for scoring. We’ll assume it scores the way the last few bills have, which would be to bring down the deficit.
No one knows if those numbers are in any way accurate. But they’re not the numbers that count.
This was all about getting to 60. For Democrats, there just isn’t any other option.
Mike Littwin writes Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Reach him at 303-954-5428 or mlittwin@denverpost.com.
