Public Option on Its Death Bed

Conn Carroll / May 05, 2009

The Center for Americna Progress hosted a conference call yesterday on health care with Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus (D-MT). The very first question on the call, from PoliticsDaily’s Jill Lawrence, was about the “public option” preferred by progressive groups like CAP and big labor.

Baucus parsed his statement carefully, first saying that “everything is on the table” and “we’re all in this together” but then moving to the public option Baucus admitted that it was “a little off to the side of the table.”

This is great news for the American people. As Heritage fellow Stuart Butler has detailed, including a public option in health care reform will inevitably lead to single payer government run health care: (more…)