Reply #16: I am completely with you and hope that is the case [View All]

But, in the unhappy event that it isn't, consider the spoken reason that a public option is needed. It is the best way we have to bring down the cost by making private companies compete with an efficient public plan - driving their costs down too.

If it passed without the public option, the increasing cost to the government will bring them back to "fix" the system very quickly. In effect, REALITY will be a "trigger" to add a public option likely within a year or two, which is before a public option would have been ready anyway. As to 2010, I think passage of a bill even with just the 85 - 90% that some Senators speak of there being agreement on. will be positive for most people. That and the fact that, in spite of the Republican effort to say there has been no recovery, the numbers disagree and the majority of people are seeing that there is the beginning of recovery.

Now, that does not mean I don't want a public option or I don't think it really important. The reason I say they will come back is because the costs will dictate that. It will have meant an extra time period where the cost continues to sky rocket. Adding a public option will then be far less complicated than all that is being done now.