Salon: Is Opt-Out a Cop-Out?
Friday, October 9th, 2009From Joan Walsh (who also agrees that supporting it depends entirely on what ‘public option’ means):
“Is the public option opt-out a cop-out? That headline’s a cop-out, I admit, since I can’t decide yet. I would prefer a robust 50-state public option, and I’d support using reconciliation to get there with less than 60 votes. But the political realist in me knows Democrats would be pilloried for using reconciliation in a way that Republicans weren’t, when they passed George W. Bush’s budget-busting tax cuts that way, twice — see my Charlie Rangel footnote on the media double standard for Democrats, below — and it would become a huge distraction. If Democrats can get a solid 60 votes with a limited opt-out — to me, it all depends on how it’s written — I’m ready to listen.”