As Senate Democratic leaders grapple with the fact that there is no support for a public health care option among Senate Republicans and even some centrist Democrats, they have decided to take a closer look at a proposal by Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., to create a publicly owned co-operative for providing health care.
“It’s a work in early progress,” said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., a key negotiator and Senate leader. “It has to do all the things that many of us want a conventional public option to do, namely keep the insurance companies honest. Provide a different model.”
Conrad’s plan for establishing a co-operative would require a public infusion of money in the beginning. But it would not be operated or controlled by the government. “A co-op is run for the customers, it would not be government,” Schumer said.
Both the House and Senate have put forward health care plans that include a strong public option but there could be enough resistance to block it, which makes Conrad’s idea more alluring as a compromise. Republican’s like the idea of staving off the creation of government-run health care. but it will be a harder sell for Democrats who see it as another form of private insurance.
Negotiators in the House and Senate are meeting daily to hash out legislation that can be on President Obama’s desk by October.
