Legal Commentary

Fred Hiatt Channels Ezra Klein On The Public Option

By Big Tent Democrat

Via Glenn Greenwald (read his great post), Fred Hiatt channels Ezra Klein:

[T]he reality is that, if the Obama administration wants to get health reform done, it's going to have to back away from the public option sooner or later -- and it's getting awfully late. . . . To listen to some Democrats talk, reform without a public option is scarcely worth doing. This is crazy.

Are WaPo Beltway Establishment Types Klein and Hiatt right on the first part? The evidence does not support this. On the second part, Klein, like Jonathan Alter and other professional "Liberal Pundits," sang a very different tune for years. But my own considered judgment is that the health care reform bill likely to emerge is NOT worth doing without a public option. Individual mandates without a public option is a terrible idea.

Letting Obama declare victory on HCR is not a good enough reason to pass a counterproductive health care bill. I think Hiatt and Klein are wrong on the politics and the substance. No public option, then no mandates. The additional Medicaid funding can be passed without calling it "health care reform."

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on August 23, 2009 (boomark / email).