Behind the scenes on public plan

Interesting article by Sam Stein on HuffingtonPost about how the big shift in the Senate on the public option came about:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/26/how-reid-found-his-silver_n_334687.html

We progressives would like to think our pressure did it -- how many online petitions did I sign? -- and in fact Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin says it was progressives that forced them to find the opt-out compromise for a public plan. As he says, how long has it been since progressives won a legislative victory?

But here's the back room story, according to Stein's sources: Early enthusiasm for a public plan soured over the summer and seemed dead -- in the Senate, anyway. The public was always in favor. But Baucus was in a dilemma -- conservative Dems wouldn't vote for a bill with it and progressives wouldn't vote for one without it. So they needed a compromise. [See, if progressives hadn't stuck to their guns by saying they wouldn't vote for a bill without a public plan, it would have gone down the tubes.]

Tom Daschle floated the idea of an opt-in plan for the states to choose to sign on to a national plan. That seemed inoffensive enough to conservatives, but the moderates led by Chuck Schumer saw some promise and said it was not too big a stretch then to flip it and make it an opt-out plan. (bait and switch tactic?)

This has many advantages: the states don't have to come up with their own structure for a public plan to opt-in, so it's more likely that many states will do it. It always easier to decide not to opt out than it is to decide to opt in. And yet it preserves autonomy for the states. It has the further advantage that states become laboratories -- some will, some won't -- and we'll get an idea of what works.

Then, in time, maybe we can take the next step to an expanded Medicare-for-All type plan.

I'm elated -- and afraid to hope. This might actually work.

Ralph