Sigh. Just wrote a longer post on this that got eated by Movable Type. But suffice to say that Brian is right to look with concern at the absence of a public insurance option in the health care principles. The public plan is something the administration supports, but isn't necessarily committed to. No one quite knows if it's the thing you need to get the liberals on-board or the thing you can't have if you're going to get Specter and Collins. But even if it is a bargaining chip, it's hard to understand the bargaining theory in which you don't start with it in the plan. If you need to negotiate it out, that's one thing. But if it's not there from the start, the Specters and Collins of the world will ask for a different concession in return for their vote. And then you won't have the public plan or whatever other thing they removed (or, I guess, included). That said, this isn't a bill, and I'm sure administration spokesfolk would tell you that they're leaving this to Congress. The budget is vague on a lot of specifics. In fact, they have said that. But I don't buy it. This could be there as easily as prevention. But they wanted the principles to be broadly supportable. The question now becomes whether Kennedy and Dodd's people decide to fight for its inclusion.
