There seems to be quite a bit of bemusement among Republicans and more centrist Democrats over the furor erupting on the Left regarding the removal of the public option. The constant refrain from more centrist Democrats is something along the lines of "this is 90% of what we want, let's take it and maybe we can get the other 10% later."

That's true I guess, but that 10% is pretty darned important to the left. The public option (or some equivalent) served two purposes. First, it put something into the law that had a chance of being gradually tweaked and expanded over the years into a single payer program (though the weak version included in the House version, left alone, likely would not have accomplished this), much the way SCHIP has grown into a major program (the trick was implementing it in the first place).

The Democrats aren't likely to have 60 Senate votes, 258 House votes and the Presidency again anytime soon, and with this bill accomplished, the taste for making major health reform changes anytime in the next decade will probably be minimal. This is probably the end of the road for the public option, at least for the foreseeable future, and we won't be making any major moves away from a private insurance based system until Haley's Comet returns.

Second, and more importantly in the near-term, without a public option, all of the taxpayer-funded subsidies would flow to private insurance companies, along with a substantial portion of taxpayer's takehome paychecks under the individual mandate. This is obviously anathema to a Democratic base that loathes insurance companies more than just about any other American institution.

--------------------------------------------
Follow the RCP Blog on Twitter.
Become a fan of RCP on Facebook.
--------------------------------------------