False Hope

Public-Option Comeback a Fake Out?

New support not as strong as it seems.

The big news Friday was that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he was open to adding a public option to health-care reform through reconciliation—a measure 18 senators have signed a letter to support. So the public option’s back from dead, right? Maybe not, says Ezra Klein: “I’ve spoken to a lot of offices about this now, and all of them are ambivalent privately, even if they're supportive publicly. … No one I've spoken to—even when they support the public option—thinks that its reemergence is good news for health-care reform. It won't be present in the package that the White House will unveil Monday. Everyone seems to be hoping this bubble will be short-lived.”