Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) announced that he would bring to the Senate floor a bill that includes a new “public plan,” but with a provision allowing states to “opt-out.” In response to a reporter’s question, Reid said that states would have until 2014 to opt-out. Setting aside the debate over the merits of a “public option”,- a new government-run health plan to compete against private health plans- there are a number of additional questions about how such a state opt-out would work. Specifically: What process will a state …
Yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) announced that the health care legislation he is drafting will include a government-run health insurance plan, or as many on the left like to call it “the public option.” The new wrinkle that Reid has thrown into the proposal is an “opt out” clause which would require states to pass legislation by 2014 rejecting participation in the federal government run plan. None of the committees in the House or Senate ever even voted on this new opt out scheme. But that does not …
