Senator Harry Reid has finally managed to get a consensus on a health care reform bill.  The newly proposed Senate bill costs a mere $849 billion ($51B less than President’s mandate of $900B), reduces the deficit by $127 billion in 10 years, covers 94 percent of Americans (31 million more Americans), includes a public option with a state opt out provision, and contains a much weaker Stupak (anti-abortion) amendment.   

New Stupak compromise is as follows:

The Senate version would require at least one plan within the health insurance exchange that the bill sets up to offer a plan that covers abortion and one that doesn’t. It would also authorize the Health and Human Services Secretary to audit plans to make certain that abortion isn’t being paid for with federal dollars.

Read the health care bill (PDF) (Abortion amendment starts at 116, Community Health Insurance Option  (Public option)  and opt out provision begins on p. 182  (Sec, 1323)

In addition, according to a recent poll conducted by the Associated Press, 52 percent of Americans favor a public option while only 38 percent oppose a public plan.  The majority of Americans have spoken and delivered a mandate to Congress that the health care reform bill must include a public option.  Participants were also asked if they would favor the public option being available nationally or whether states should be able to opt out resulting in the following:

Poll participants were asked whether government insurance should be available to all, or whether state governments should be able to decide not to offer it. Seventy percent favored making it available nationally while 25 percent said state governments should be able to decide.

The bill obviously needs a bit more work when it comes to the opt out provision.