Sam Stein reports an interesting development. After 9 Democratic senators
banded together for a public option push, Diane Feinstein has
become the 10th:
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) became the 10th Senator to sign on to a new effort by Democrats to press Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to pass a public option for insurance coverage using reconciliation, her office confirmed to the Huffington Post on Wednesday.
The California Democrat joins a list of mostly progressive members to offer her late-stage support for the government run plan. In a letter to Reid on Tuesday a quartet of Democrats penned urged Reid to pass the proposal through parliamentary procedures that allow a simple up-or-down vote.
And Stein notes, Feinstein hasn't been out in public urging that we get a public option before. This is a startling surprise of pleasant indeed:
In putting her name among the signatories Feinstein expands the pool of senators pushing for a public plan beyond the progressive wing and those lawmakers facing primary challenges in the 2010 midterm elections. The California Democrat has been a supporter of the proposal from the start, though not a particularly vocal one. The recent news that the largest insurer in her home state, Anthem Blue Cross, was raising premiums on its customers by as much as 39 percent played a role in her decision.
"I can think of no better example of why we need health insurance reform," she said of the rate-hike news, "and this kind of behavior is a stark reminder of why any reform plan should establish a rate authority to keep insurance rates affordable."
There I say, has the public option out of nowhere had its most unexpected and dramatic Lazarus moment to date?
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