Moderate Democrats weigh ‘public option’ in health care reform proposal by Sen. Harry Reid — MedCity Morning Read, Oct. 29, 2009

Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid made a risky decision to bring to the chamber’s floor a health-care bill containing a government insurance plan, according to the Washington Post.

The Nevada Democrat’s decision has been met with skepticism from moderate Democrats, who said they still don’t know whether they can ultimately support a public option — in any of the forms in which it has been proposed.

The latest challenge to Reid’s move came from Sen. Joseph Lieberman, a Connecticut Independent, who told reporters that he was “inclined to support” a procedural motion to bring the measure to the floor, the Post said. But Lieberman remains opposed to a government-run insurance plan in any form — even with an “opt-out” provision for states that Reid said Monday he would include in the legislation.

”I really want to get to yes,” Lieberman, who caucuses with the Democrats, told the Washington Post. Unless the public-option language is dropped, however, he said, he probably would align with Republicans to block the measure.

Democrats expect Reid to spend coming days angling for commitments from all 60 members of his caucus to allow the Senate to begin debate on the reform legislation, which is aimed at lowering health-care costs, reforming insurance practices and expanding coverage to about 30 million uninsured Americans, the Post said.

Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland told the Cleveland Plain Dealer on Tuesday that he’d rather let Ohioans participate in the government-run health insurance program being planned by congressional Democrats, in spite of the ability to opt the state out of the plan.

“I don’t think there’s any question, Ohio would stay in,” U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat who co-wrote the so-called public option, or public plan language, in the Senate health committee, according to the Plain Dealer. Brown predicted most other states would participate, too.

There is unlikely to be a financial benefit to a state opting out of a national plan, the Plain Dealer said. But some lawmakers worry about putting private insurers out of business with competition from a public plan or giving the federal government too much power. States that opt out could avoid this.

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