Legal Commentary

What Was The Important Part Of The "Reform" In The Health Care Reform Proposals?

By Big Tent Democrat

It's all academic now, but Ezra Klein finally lays out his cards on what he thought was the important part of the reform in the health care reform proposals:

Reconciliation, in other words, tips the bill towards an expansion of the public sector rather than a restructuring of the private sector [. . .] To be very clear, this is not a trade I'm eager to see reformers make. You lose too much in reconciliation, and gain too little. The exchanges are too important, and so too are the insurance regulations and delivery-system reforms. But if Democrats end up in reconciliation, this bill is going to get a lot worse from the perspective of its skeptics.

(Emphasis supplied.) Ezra was never against expanding public insurance programs. But he never thought much of them. In a sense, the bill that will be enacted is what Ezra wanted (coincidentally, it is what President Obama wanted.) Again, I do not begrudge him his opinions. I just disagree with them. I do begrudge his disingenuity in his writings and TV appearances as a "public option supporter." He never really cared about the public option. His ideal was not single payer. It was Wyden-Bennett. (Of course, both had an equal chance of passage - ZERO.) He should have been more forthright about that.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on December 15, 2009 (boomark / email).