# GOP still trending to win Senate **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [August 13, 2014, 10:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-still-trending-to-win-senate/695426 "2014-08-13T10:52:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 509
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2014, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-still-trending-to-win-senate/695426/509 "2014-09-17T14:57:26Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > IMO, a public option wouldn’t have needed to provide cheaper-than-market premiums. It could serve just as a floor or stopgap. It would imply _more_ choice, _not_ less. And, its existence as an insurer-of-last-resort would have allowed easing of the restrictions placed on private insurers. Many of us conservatives actually like the idea of an insurer of last resort, but that’s not really the way the public option would have worked. It was going to be set at Medicare+10% payment rates to undercut the private sector. Which would be fine if the private sector just couldn’t compete on price. What made is a poison pill is that it would not be allowed to fail. Assurances that it would be funded by premiums only are not very reliable either because there are a lot of government programs that supposedly pay for themselves as long as you don’t use the same accounting methods that the government requires of corporations. > [@](#): > > My understanding is that Democratic leadership refused to consider a public option. I’d like to read more about that betrayal, though this is obviously not the thread for it. It’s not a very long story. Since Republican opposition was monolithic, the bill that could pass would be whatever Mary Landrieu and Ben Nelson would support. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-still-trending-to-win-senate/695426)._