public plan

Now that the veil has been lifted, here are a few of the important numbers surrounding the Senate’s health reform bill, courtesy of the Congressional Budget Office.

$848 billion: Ten-year cost of the proposal, all of it offset by revenue increases and budget cuts elsewhere.
$130 billion: Amount the bill would reduce budget deficits over 10 years.
[...]

Not the blue states.
There are roughly 46 million people living in America without health insurance coverage, representing about 15 percent of the nation’s population, according to the most recent numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau. But they aren’t distributed evenly around the country.

As Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) marks his line of opposition to a public insurance plan in the Democrats’ health reform bill, it’s worth noting that no industry has given more to Nelson’s congressional career than the insurers. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks campaign contributions, insurance companies have donated nearly $1.3 million to Nelson [...]

Sen. Ben Nelson, the conservative-leaning Nebraska Democrat, vowed to filibuster health reform legislation if it includes a public health insurance plan, ABC News reported yesterday.

“Well, first of all, it has more than a robust public option, it’s got a totally government-run plan, the costs are extraordinary associated with it, it increases taxes in a way [...]

Four of the 15 protesters arrested in the office of Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) since Thursday remain in jail, refusing to give their names, and are threatening to remain there until the senator agrees to talk to them, according to Lacy MacAuley, representative of Mobilization for Health Care for All, the single-payer advocacy group that [...]

Last Thursday, nine protesters were arrested for refusing to leave the office of Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.). Today, six more were hauled away, Roll Call reports.
CodePink** helped organize both sit-ins, protesting Lieberman’s threat to filibuster the health care reform bill. Joan Stallard, a CodePink member who watched Tuesday as police carted off her colleagues, accused [...]

Sen. Mary Landrieu (La.), the moderate Democrat who’s been a loud critic of her party’s plan to create a public insurance option, is warming to the proposal, Roll Call reported today.
“The president was right to move us in the direction of finding a way to turn this cost curve down. We cannot accomplish any of [...]

The Iowa Independent caught this quote from Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), talking about Sen. Joe Lieberman’s (I-Conn.) recent threat to join a GOP filibuster of a health care bill that includes a public health insurance plan.
“[Lieberman] still wants to be a part of the Democratic Party although he is a registered independent. He wants to [...]

The Washington Post points out today that, by divorcing public plan rates from Medicare in their final health reform bill, House Democrats might have to hike Medicaid eligibility to 150 percent of poverty as a compensation measure.
The shuffle looks fine on paper. After all, coverage is coverage, right?
Actually, no.

Beneath breathtaking headlines, a number of news outlets are reporting this morning that House Democrats will include a public insurance option in the health care reform bill they’ll bring to the floor.
The mystery is why this is news, other than we now have a bill to talk about.