No-Win Situation

Poor Max Baucus.

The Democratic senator and Finance Committee chairman from Montana must be getting a taste of Chicago pressure politics from President Barack Obama's operatives -- seasoned, street-fighting tough guys like Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.

In mid-September, Baucus presented to the nation and to his colleagues in the Senate a health care reform bill that excluded the controversial "public option." It was a compromise bill and was both praised and criticized as such.

Even though Obama has said he can live with a bill that excludes the public option -- a government-run alternative to private health insurance -- the president has repeatedly stated that he would a prefer a plan that includes it.

Which is probably why two members of the Senate Finance Committee offered public option amendments as senators haggled over the legislation on Tuesday. Democrats Charles E. Schumer of New York and John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia each proposed a public option plan, but both amendments were defeated when some Democrats joined forces with the committee's 10 Republicans. Five Democrats voted against Rockefeller's amendment and three rejected Schumer's proposal.

So the failure of these measures reflected much more on the president than on Baucus, who had deliberately left the public option out of his proposed legislation in hopes of gaining support from moderate Democrats and maybe even a Republican or two.

That means all the president's men (and women) must be looking for ways to persuade Baucus to become a more reliable practitioner of party politics.

It would be naive to assume he is not under intense pressure from the White House and from leaders of his party. All of this must make him feel like a man who cannot win. He is taking flak from his own party as well as from Republicans when all he has done is deliver a proposed bill that at the very least represents a step in the right direction in the battle for health care reform. The Baucus plan offers the best chance for significant change that we have seen.

Passage of his bill would be historic for the country. And yet he is being pressured to add something to it that he does not want to add: the public option.

The pressure Baucus is feeling will most likely put him in good company with President Obama. Obama will need to decide before long if he wants to fight for the public option, or abandon it. Much like Baucus, the president almost can't win.

If he insists on a public plan, Obama will undoubtedly lose because that plan will not get the required 60 votes in the Senate. And any hope of enacting health care reform this year will be crushed. If the president washes his hands of the public option, he will disappoint if not flat-out infuriate party leaders such as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

The pro-public option legislators' views were probably best summed in Wednesday's Washington Post story quoting Rockefeller:

"The public plan will be optional," Rockefeller insisted. "It will be voluntary. It will be affordable to people who are now helpless before their insurance companies."

The Post then reported the opposition's view:

"But Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the senior Republican on the committee, said a government insurance plan would have inherent advantages over private insurers. 'Government is not a fair competitor,' Mr. Grassley said. 'It's a predator.' He predicted that 'a government plan will ultimately force private insurers out of business,' reducing choices for consumers."

When it comes to providing goods or services effectively and efficiently, free enterprise will always be superior to a government program of any description. But no private business, large or small -- including multi-national insurance companies -- has the financial resources to compete with the government of the United States.

The public option would grow like crabgrass, expanding and expanding until private insurance companies were squeezed out of the picture.

Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, R-Utah, calls the public option "a Trojan Horse." He is correct. Once inside the gate, the option will be revealed as part of a huge deception. Any plans to include it should be defeated.

For Obama and Baucus and others, political chaos could follow, no matter who prevails on health care reform. They should resolve this quickly, before more damage is done to their party and the administration.

Richard L. Connor is CEO of the Wilkes-Barre, Pa., Publishing Co. and MaineToday Media, owner of newspapers in Portland, Augusta and Waterville, Maine. A newspaperman for 40 years, he has served on two Pulitzer Prize for Journalism nominating committees.