on NPR Obama defends health reform bill as historic

President Barack Obama, in an interview with NPR, pushed back against those on the left who complain that the health care bill about to be voted by the Senate is fatally flawed because it lacks a government insurance plan - a "public option". It is the biggest reform since Medicare, perhaps Social Security, says the President, slipping uncharacteristically into hyperbole. The transcript is HERE.

I agree with Paul Waldman of the American Prospect. Although it is galling to be forced by the likes of Joseph Lieberman and the cloture rule to take a big bite out of what a majority is ready to embrace, Waldman explains:

For all its weaknesses, even the Senate's version of health reform, which would hopefully move more in the direction of the House's version when the two are merged in conference, contains an extraordinary number of beneficial features. (You can find an excellent summary of both bills here, from the Kaiser Family Foundation.)

It insures over 30 million more people.

It expands Medicaid coverage.

It outlaws denials for pre-existing conditions, rescission, gender discrimination in premiums, and both annual and lifetime coverage caps.

It provides hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies for low- and middle-income people to buy insurance.

It makes it so if you lose your job, you don't lose your health insurance.

It forces insurers to allow people as old as 26 to stay on their parents' policies.

It establishes dozens of pilot programs to test new ways of saving money and improving care. All of these provisions, and many others, will substantially improve people's lives.

And the insurance exchange puts in place the structure through which further improvements can be made in the years ahead.