Political Katrina

by digby

Following up on dday’s post below, I see that Jon Cohn is also reading the tea leaves and seeing that Obama is blessing not only the MEDPac idea, (which actually comes from the white house) but also the repeal of the employer tax exclusion, which the CBO Chief hinted broadly would get his blessing if included in the plan (and which I said they should do if only for that reason.) He’s specifically saying that he is intrigued by what we are calling the “Kerry plan,” as previously reported, which, as I wrote yesterday, seems like a rather elegant solution to the political aspects of that problem.

This is good. No news yet on the rumor that they have decided to report out a plan without the public option. But if they do, I hope they realize that they are going to see a progressive shit storm of Katrina proportions.

The Public Plan is already a compromise position that the grassroots nonetheless rallied around as a concession to pragmatism (driven by a presidential campaign that left them little choice.) For better or worse, it’s the sugar that made this hybrid medicine go down on the progressive side. Throwing that away, even if somebody thinks they can restore it in conference, is a deliberately provocative act and they should be wary of the consequences.

Recall it isn’t just the little bloggers who are agitating for a public plan. It has been endorsed by dozens of health industry interests at some political risk to themselves as well as Obama’s own grassroots organization. It is not just another data point.

I don’t doubt they would love to do it. It would be a huge victory for the insurance companies who own the financial services committee and would appease the Big Money Boyz across the board to see that there is absolutely no issue over which which Democrats will fulfill their promises to their constituents if it means threatening the power and influence of those who hold the purse strings. But it will cause these same Democrats a gargantuan amount of grief from their left. Maybe they don’t care. But if they don’t report out the public plan at this point, we’ll certainly find out.

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