The congressional budget office may drive a strong public option into reality

Because any attempt to dilute or eliminate the public option will result in less cost containment, it seems almost certain that a strong public option will have to remain.

Fiscal conservatives, who value savings above all else, will be discontented. Although many "plans" may pay for themselves, plans that lack a strong government-run program will fail to achieve their stated goal of reining in costs, even in simulation. And this failure will be immediately reported by the MSM. Essentially they can't eliminate the public option and pass anything that they may otherwise like, even to please moderates or conservatives (fiscal).

Furthermore, it is very possible that when Medicare for All (HR676) is scored, it will be seen as the most effective way to break the huge health care cost inflationary cycle, even more so than a strong public option. Perhaps it will serve as wakeup call to go even further than all plans proposed so far.

I am very interested to see how this plays out. I hope that the information becomes available soon to use as talking points with friends and Congress.

in their thinking. At least cost containment as it applies to the individual. The cost they're worried about is the cost to the government, and that is the cost they want to contain. The full public option would cost $400 billion a year, the partial $100 billion. It looks like they would not be able to fund those costs without a major tax increase, and it would be hard to find 50 votes for such a tax increase in the current economic environment with a $1.8 trillion deficit.

Apparently, the co-op concept can be funded with only $3-$4 billion of federal money. That's doable.

First, they do want revenue neutral plans-- that's one thing killing single-payer. Even if single-payer pays for itself overall, they don't want to shift the payments to the government. Really stupid, but apparently this is the case.

Second, they are very concerned that cost containment occurs. Initial estimates that an early version of the HELP bill would not hold costs were used by Republicans to hit them over the head. MSM were gleeful . The Republicans will use it again. Ironic, that they may help force the public option that is anathema to them(although none or few will vote for it). A national Co-op would only contain costs if there are increased regulations to hold down costs. The needed regulations would be considered anti-capitalist by some, but I think they could be effective. It's not clear they are being considered though. For example, CAPPing costs (via premiums) that insurers could charge patients. Here's one way to do it: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6313878

Let real Healthcare come to Americans