By Edward Galuszka
Over the course of the Health Care debate in the United States, we’ve seen a lot of tilting at windmills from quite a few members of the Senate Finance Committee. This has been especially particularly evident regarding the so-called public option, which would establish a government-run insurance option to compete with private plans in the proposed insurance exchange. The Democratic members of the committee in particular have been tilting back and forth on the measure, including Chairman Max Baucus.
There’s one Republican on the committee that has also participated in the Public option waffling. In fact, Senator Olympia Snowe hasn’t just participated in the swaying to and fro on the option, she’s elevated it to an art form. Her power on the committee hasn’t just extended to the public option, but to whether or not she would vote the bill out to the Senate at large. As the bill has now left committee, the power of the Senator from Maine has not diminished.
In fact, some would argue it’s increased. As the sole Republican vote to have the bill leave committee, she is strongly placed to speak for an entire group of moderate, pro-reform Republicans who have little voice in the upper chamber of the Congress. This was first among the reasons why Senator Snowe had been so coy in the past few weeks regarding her support or non-support of the Finance Committee legislation. It seems, however, that this fence-sitting may have come to and end.
Senator Olympia Snowe has now, unequivocally said she will not support a public option, even if that bill allows individual states to opt-out of the public insurance program. Whether or not this is an indication that she will vote against a bill which contains one is yet to be seen, but this may spell an end to Senator Snowe’s record as the premier fence-sitter of the Senate Finance Committee. I, for one, will miss the suspense.
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