The Public Option

Some folks are now reporting that Senator Reid si going to kill the public option from the Senate health care bill. At the same time, CBO has come out with a score for the two public options and found a strong one would save $110b over ten years (and a weak one $25b).

How does a public option save money? Basically it would reduce the amount of subsidies we need to give out by driving down the cost of insurance through increased competition. With that in play, it seems like a pretty easy middle ground would be to put in place a trigger that if in five years private insurers hadn't bent the curve such that subsidies are $11b a year lower than projected then the public option would kick in. Obviously the devil is in the details, and you would need to keep the heat on. But essentially it is a you find it or we will kind of ultimatum.

Make sense or am I missing something?