I’ve been fielding a fair amount of comments and email about my Huffington Post piece on the (overestimated) importance of the public option. My favorite was the one that said I was “in the pocket of big insurance.” I need to hook that guy up with the one a few months ago who called me “Marxist Welby, MD”.
Anyway, I’m not against the public option! Even though I don’t think it’s as critical or powerful as many think it is, I hope it passes. Which is why I’m happy to see Senator Nelson say this (emphasis not mine):
“Well, there are different kinds of public options…. What was interesting in the poll numbers that I saw, that while there’s support for public option generally, generically, when you start talking about it specifically as it relates to states being able to opt out or opt in, have their own, the support overwhelmingly goes up to 76 percent.”
If Senator Nelson, certainly one of the most conservative Democrats, is willing to say something like this, there may be a public option after all.
