Hope Springs Eternal: Lieberman I Will Not Allow Any Bill With A Public Option To Come To A Vote
Which is all well and good. I’m all for gumming up the works and making sure this bill described by the Wall Street Journal as the worst piece of legislation post-New Deal doesn’t pass. And this combined with efforts from people like Senator Coburn promises to make passage in the Senate even more difficult than the narrow victory Democrats won last night.
That being said, the “public option” isn’t the only bad part of this bill.
What’s worse than the “public option” is the health insurance mandate (the one that would fine us or even put us in prison if we don’t buy government-approved health insurance policies) and the health insurance exchange. The latter being the bureaucratic apparatus through which anyone seeking a new policy would have to work through.
Think about that for a moment. Even if there was no public option in this bill, with the health care exchange in place you’d only be able to purchase health insurance through the government. True, those of you with existing policies would be able to keep them, but what about your children? What if you change jobs? What if you lose your job or start your own business?
In any of those scenarios the only choice would be to go through the government and buy only from the government-approved choices the politicians have decided should be available to you.
Even though you wouldn’t be getting your coverage from the government directly that’s government health care. Meaning that this bill is unacceptable even without the public option.
We can only hope that liberals are so myopic in their determination to pass a public option that stripping it from the bill nixes any chance of the overall bill passing at all.
