Public Option: Under the Bus?

A number of news items came out over the weekend saying the public option was being excised from health care reform. This morning the White House is scrambling to reassure people this is not so.

However, the overall message is that while the Obama Administration wants the public option, the President would sign whatever Congress can pass, including a bill that does not include the public option. And there appears to be a strong movement within the Senate to kill the public option. Jacob Hacker explains why that would be more than a damn shame.

The New York Times‘s new pet conservative, Ross Douthat, seems to have noticed one of the massive inconsistencies in the fight from the Right against health care reform: By stoking the fear of senior citizens that their Medicare benefits will be cut, the GOP has placed itself in the role of defender of an entitlement.

Medicare’s price tag, if trends continue, will make a mockery of the idea of limited government. For conservatives, no fiscal cause is more important than curbing this exponential growth. And by fighting health care reform with tactics ripped from Democratic playbooks, and enlisting anxious seniors as foot soldiers, conservatives are setting themselves up to win the battle and lose the longer war.

The fact is, it’s the Right that wants to cut Grandma’s Medicare benefits, not the Left.

We’re already practically a gerontocracy: Americans over 50 cast over 40 percent of the votes in the 2008 elections, and half the votes in the ’06 midterms. As the population ages — by 2030, there will be more Americans over 65 than under 18 — the power of the elderly and nearly elderly may become almost absolute.

In this future, somebody will need to stand for the principle that Medicare can’t pay every bill and bless every procedure. Somebody will need to defend the younger generation’s promise (and its pocketbooks). Somebody will need to say “no” to retirees.

And I have no doubt the Right will do just that, as soon as they defeat health care reform.

It also needs to be said that while Medicare costs are rising, they are not rising nearly as fast as costs in the private health care sector. Inefficiency and excessive costs are only bad when they are found in government. If the private sector is bleeding you dry, you’re supposed to be thankful for capitalism.

Update: Nate Silver counts the Senate votes.