Even though the national media narrative is now portraying the public option as the focal point of the debate on health care reform, that debate hasn't held up health insurance reform by even a single day. Instead of the public option, it is the process focus on bipartisanship, and negotiating with bad-faith Republicans, that is the hold-up. Consider the following:
Five Congressional committees--three in the House and two in the Senate--have been given purview over health insurance reform legislation. Four of those committees have passed a health insurance reform bill. The only one to not pass a bill is the Senate Finance Committee.
All four bills to pass committee have a public option. The one committee expected not to report a public option is the one that hasn't passed a bill. As such, the public option is not the source of this delay.
Of the 65+ members of Congress who have threatened to vote against health care reform legislation without a public option, not a single one of them sits on the Senate Finance committee. The Progressive Block is not the source of this delay.
Not a single Republican voted for any of the four bills to pass a Congressional committee so far. The only committee where Republicans are being given equal negotiating power is the one that hasn't passed a bill. As such, it seems that Republicans are holding up the bill, not the public option or the Progressive Block.
Whatever attention the debate on the public option is drawing, the variable holding up health insurance reform is the degree of bipartisanship sought in the process by the Senate Finance Committee. It is a focus on bipartisan process is holding up health insurance reform, not the public option.
Even if Republicans are understood to be bad faith negotiators when viewed as a whole, many will argue that it is necessary to make a lasting, good-faith, public effort to negotiate with them anyway. Otherwise, Democrats will take a hit when they inevitably have to go it alone on health care.
That might be the case, but it is only true if you assume that the electorate cares about political process stories. That is a difficult assumption to prove, given that not a single national priorities poll has ever shown that more than 2% of the country considers bipartisanship to be a top goal for elected officials in D.C. to address. If the country cared about bipartisanship and political process, they would have told us so in open-ended national priorities polls. They haven't done so, and yet Democrats continue to allow a focus on bipartisan political process to derail health insurance reform anyway. It is hard to imagine that is helping our approval ratings.
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