Next steps

I don't have any inside info to add. This says Sen. Reid will send bills to CBO today with different public option options embedded. Soon the President will have to say exactly what he wants.

Here is Al Hunt saying reform unravels sans Sen. Snowe. This of course angers liberals in House and Senate. And the clock ticks, so it would seem the Pres. will have to step up soon and tilt the balance in a given direction re the public option.

Speaking of which, a few weeks back I wrote that I assumed that Blue Cross/Blue Shield NC would oppose a public option in NC. I got a mailer from them over the weekend with the following tag line:

"No matter what you call it, if the federal government intervenes in the private health insurance market, it's a slippery slope to a single-payer system. Who wants that?"

Actually, to answer the question they pose rhetorically.....probably a majority of the people I know who live in my neighborhood and who work at Duke.....but the whole world doesn't live in Durham and Chapel Hill.

The mailer then asks folks to contact Sen. Hagan and tell her to "Tell Senate leaders that North Carolina doesn't need government-run insurance." [presumably exempting Medicare? My grandmother needed government run health insurance in the form of Medicare last week when she was hospitalized]