If getting Maine Senator Olympia Snowe to offer some semblance of Republican (and hence, bipartisan) support for the health care bill was an almost impossible task, wait until you see the gargantuan mountain Democrats have to climb now: keeping Snowe on board.
Snowe explicitly warned that her vote could change. If it does, it would likely be over what has become the turning point in the health care debate: the public option. Snowe has vowed support only for the Baucus bill that will emerge from the panel on which she sits, the Senate Finance Committee. But now comes the tricky part.
With the Finance Committee wrapping up its version of the health care reform bill, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will have to perform a tightrope act to reconcile that legislation with the version passed by the late Massachusett's Senator Ted Kennedy's (now Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin's) Senate Health, Pensions, and Labor Committee during the summer. Both of the highly divergent bills will have to merge into a single form before being introduced on the Senate floor for debate by the full chamber.
The two pieces of legislation disagree on several fundamental issues, including whether or not to include a so-called "public-option" in which the federal government would offer low-cost health care insurance to increase competition and help force down the overall price of health care. Consumers would still pay a premium, though it would likely be less than those currently offered by the private care industry. The Health Committee bill provides for the public option, while the Finance committee bill does not.
According to Reid, a public option will be featured in the final bill that he introduces. But depending on the final form, that may cost Democrats support from Snowe. Being that Snowe provides the necessary factor for bipartisanhsip (namely, an "R" after her name), it's likely to spell the end of the public option. At least for now.
Snowe's own version of the bill could, theoretically, come back into play. Snowe suggested putting a public option trigger in the bill, which would prevent a public option from being in the initial offering. However, if health insurers failed to meet benchmarks for lowering costs within a certain period of time, that failure would trigger a public option. The compromise plan would have given the health care industry the opportunity to correct the problem, but would reserve the public option to maintain accountability.
What final form the bill takes is yet to be seen, but Snowe's presence adds a new dimension. And whether the public option ends up in the bill will largely depend on how intent Harry Reid is on keeping Snowe in the fold.
