What are the chances that the Public option will be in the final bill ?

[TheCoxwain]

I have posted this question in different forms many times -- but have not got a good answer yet...

let's say the Baucus Bill passes senate ... How will that be reconciled with the house version ( which I presume will include the public option)? Do Blue dogs/ Pukes have a say in that process?

[mikelgb]

1. There will be a public Option in name only.

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. The Baucus bill first needs to get out of Committee

and it is NOT THE ONLY BILL in the Senate, the other two have PO... and Jay Rockefeller has promised a series of amendments before this poss gets out they include PO.

It should be telling that the man meeting with the PResident yesterday was not Baucus but Rockefeller. That was a signal to the committee

It will have a PO.. but remember this is the beginning of the fight. SS and Medicare did stink seriously when first signed into law.

[emulatorloo]

3. Baucus Bill is a joke, it will not move forward as is. Maybe if has the hell ammended out of it

so that it actually has the PO and helps people.

See this thread:


Ganging up on Baucus: Senator's plan garners bipartisan grumbles
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6572292

From the article quoted there

<SNIP>

Baucus’s bill and his exclusion of all but two other Democrats from negotiations met with ambivalence to downright rejection from most Democrats, especially liberals.

<SNIP>

[DrDan]

4. certainly depends on your definition of the public option

I think the chances are very good there will be something that will be labeled a public option.

But is it what we want? I would say the chances of that are ZERO.

[damntexdem]

5. I suspect that there will be a public option.

But I don't know that it will be one that will mean much.

The House bill doesn't offer it to everyone as an option. Without that, it won't be much of a basis of competition with for-profit criminality ... I mean health insurance.

Still, if it's in, it can form the basis of providing insurance to those who cannot otherwise afford it, to 'hard-to-insure' people, and so on.