It irks me to say so, but I think Andrew Sullivan’s exactly right about the politics of the public option and the state opt-out provision (via Digby), and that it’s not unrelated to the politics of the stimulus package, which put Republican governors back on their heels earlier this year.
I’ve avoided writing much about health care, mostly because Congress is in the middle of a deeply complex, truly epic legislative battle (one that I hope will be captured in book form at some point in the future), and it’s hard to tell tactics from strategy on a day to day basis – on any given day, Harry Reid goes from goat to hero and back, or the other way around depending on where you stand. If you can bear the minutiae it’s an engrossing drama, but in the long term, I think Sullivan’s right that the state opt-out provision is all about giving the GOP enough rope.