The Return of the Public Option?

With the conference of the House and Senate Democrats over the several versions of health care that they have now passed, at least in committees, the so-called "public option," or government-run health care, is now back on the table.

Of course, no Republicans are included in these deliberations, as the Democrats apparently believe the American voters won't punish them for not even trying for bi-partisanship on this issue.

Will the CBO rescore any resulting bill containing the vaunted public option?
Will the resulting bill be posted online for at least 72 hours, as Wonderboy promised during his campaign for all major legislation?

We aren't getting C-Span coverage of the debates over this legislation, as promised in his campaign. Rather than the transparency he promised, we're getting the old one-party stiff-arm.

Of all the bad ideas being written into legislation, though, the public option is the worst. No matter how it is conditioned or couched, it represents the looming, eventual move by the federal government to eliminate the private health insurance industry.

This will not end well.

Perhaps enough Democrats are still not so liberal as to believe they will survive their next election after the passage of such legislation.

In a way, it may almost be better to watch these liberals pass this bill, in hopes it will return the House and perhaps the Senate, at a stroke, back to the Republicans. And maybe, as a libertarian friend of mine remarked, the GOP will remember to behave like the party of smaller government.

We can only hope.