Where Would We Be If Joe Lieberman Hadn’t Killed the Public Option?

Even before Obama was sworn in, other Democrats began calling for health care reform. On the more liberal side, Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy, chairman of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, included a public option in his committee’s proposal. “If you like the insurance you have today, you can keep it. If you don’t like what you have today, we will give you better choices, including a public option for health care,” said Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd, who was also on the committee. said at the time. On the more conservative side, Senator Max Baucus of Montana, chairman of the Finance Committee, did not include a public option in his plan, but proposed a more modest participation in Medicaid for those aged 55-64.

A public option could have had the effect of reducing the cost of premiums, especially at the beginning. This is because the government would have had the power to negotiate much lower payments to hospitals and doctors because they would have insured such a large number of patients and would have been a very large player. This is how Medicare and other public insurance programs now reduce costs. But competition with a private option may also have led insurers to lower their premiums early on.

After a year of wrangling within the two committees and the entire Senate, the public option has seen some deaths and resurrections. Obama defended it and the Democrats had a 60-seat majority in the Senate. But that majority included Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, who had caucused with Democrats but was a more centrist independent, and he threatened to filibuster with Republicans if the bill contained a public option. It was removed from the final bill.