Legal Commentary

Senate Reaches Agreement on Health Care

By Jeralyn

Lots of news sources are reporting a "broad agreement" has been reached in the Senate on health care.

The AP is further reporting (in an article with a time stamp two hours from now) that the agreement includes tossing the public option. Are they right?

Democratic senators say they have a tentative deal to drop a government-run insurance option from health care legislation. No further details were immediately available.

But liberals and moderates have been discussing an alternative, including a private insurance arrangement to be supervised by the federal agency that oversees the system through which lawmakers purchase coverage. Additionally, talks centered on opening up Medicare to uninsured Americans beginning at age 55, a significant expansion of the large government health care program that currently serves the over-65 population.

Jon at Firedoglake is not impressed with the likely details of the Medicare proposal. It won't cover that many people and is not really a buy-in. By the time they are done, it may not even really be Medicare.

Update: WaPo: The public option is being shelved in favor of other alternatives.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on December 08, 2009 (boomark / email).