OPM: The Public Option in Disguise
Richard Sherwood and Vivek Rajasekhar /
In order to secure the votes to pass a health care bill, Senate Democrats were forced to scrap the widely-unpopular public option. But before chalking this up as a victory for opponents of government-run health care, though, its replacement deserves a closer look. As described in Sec 1334 of the Senate bill, the Director of the Office for Personnel Management (OPM) would now be charged with sponsoring a set of multi-state health plans to compete with private insurers. As a recently published detailed analysis by Heritage’s Bob Moffit and Kathryn Nix shows, this new program is simply a placeholder for the public option.
On January 20, The Heritage Foundation hosted three former OPM directors to explore the ramifications of the new proposal. Former Director Linda Springer opened by questioning the role of OPM in the proposal. OPM currently administers the successful Federal Employee Health Benefits Program, and it is due to this expertise that the agency was chosen to run the new multi-state plans. However, Springer warned that overstretching OPM beyond its traditional role could result in the cannibalization of the existing FEHB program.