A Thinly-Disguised Power Grab: The Latest Senate “Compromise” On The Government-Run Health Plan
Robert Moffit /
Details are diabolical. Very soon, the fine print of the latest Senate scheme on the government-run health plan will be unveiled. If the Senate leadership has its way, the newly hatched “compromise” on the “public plan” will move quickly by the fleeting light of day toward passage.
In their relentless drive to overhaul one sixth of the American economy, Senators are obviously making it up as they go along. In the latest desperate search to find some form of government-run health plan to compete against private health plans that is somehow acceptable to Senate liberals and moderates alike, the Senate Democratic leadership is entertaining the idea of stripping the existing “public option” from the big Senate health bill ( H.R. 3590), and replacing it with a combination of public options: an OPM/FEHBP sponsored plan ( that will be “private” in name only) and an expansion of the two giant- and financially troubled or debt ridden- Great Society entitlements: Medicare and Medicaid. If the original idea of the public option was to keep costs down, As its champions have tiresomely insisted, a proposal to expand Medicaid and Medicare is curious to say the least: Both are major drivers of the health care spending curve upwards- well into the stratosphere.