Senate Deal Could Get Health Care Reform Over at Last

We may have a deal in the Senate. The New York Times is reporting that the five moderates and five Progressive Democrats that have been meeting privately have come to an agreement that could get the 60 votes needed to pass.

Under the agreement, people ages 55 to 64 could “buy in” to Medicare. And a federal agency, the Office of Personnel Management, would negotiate with insurance companies to offer national health benefit plans, similar to those offered to federal employees, including members of Congress.

If these private plans did not meet certain goals for making affordable coverage available to all Americans, Senate Democratic aides said, then the government itself would offer a new insurance plan, somewhat like the “public option” in the bill Mr. Reid unveiled three weeks ago.

The option to buy into Medicare below age 65. if its affordable, is probably the solution we should have had all along. Medicare is a known commodity, for good or for ill, and seniors like it. Tweaking Medicare to get rid of the waste and fraud could make it an awesome insurance option, and in a few years we can just let people 45-54 buy in, and so on down the line, without a lot of controversy.

I hope this passes for several reasons. First, I’m tired of the entire debate. Second, the longer it goes on, the more polluted the political climate becomes for anything else.  Third, Obama has used up pretty much all of his political capital on this, and we still have jobs and the economy to go — not to mention cap-and-trade. Fourth, and most important, it’s a good solution to the problem. It’s a shame that the solution itself is so far down the list of priorities. But it’s telling that the debate has gone on so long that the issues have been superseded by the potential impact of reform or no reform on everything else Obama hopes to do.

Let’s hope this really is a viable option, and that it allows us to put the health care reform debate behind us.