Debate over public option focuses on Senate Dems who represent 3% of the American people
The nail-biting, on-again-off-again procedural debate in Washington over health care reform is helping to mask a noteworthy fact:
Most Americans want a public option — and most of their elected lawmakers want it, too.
Popular support for a government-run alternative to corporate, for-profit insurance hovers currently around 53%. (During the heady, passionate debate, this number has dipped from 57%.)
It now appears that at least 55 out of 100 US Senators — including all four Senators from New York and Vermont — support the public option, albeit one that would allow individual states to “opt out.”
It’s also worth noting that these 55 Senators represent the American states with the vast majority of America’s population.
Opponents of the bill within the Democratic Party include lawmakers from Arkansas, Louisiana, Nebraska and Montana.
Taken together, they represent roughly 3% of the American people. (Lump in Independent Joe Lieberman and the percentage jumps to around 4%.)
Meanwhile, the Democratic lawmakers from big, high population states (California, Illinois, New York, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania) where most of us actually live support the public option.
Whether you favor or oppose government-managed insurance, it’s worth noting that once again the intensely undemocratic structure of the US Senate is skewing the national debate.
The Senate gives hugely disproportionate power to lawmakers from states where very few people live — states that tend to be largely white and rural.
What’s more, the Senate rules allows just a minority of those rural lawmakers to sustain filibusters that block debates and votes.
In small-town America, the public option remains deeply unpopular, despite the fact that a disproportionate percentage of rural folks use publicly-funded insurance, including Medicaid, Medicare and VA services.
“Homelander” opposition in the Senate is likely to be a chronic problem for Democrats pushing an ambitious agenda on everything from immigration reform to the repeal of don’t-ask-don’t-tell.
