In Which Zandar Answers Your Burning Questions

Josh Marshall asks:

Am I the only one who thinks that if the Dems pass a bill with mandates and subsidies for poor and moderate income people to purchase it but no public option or competition with the insurers, that it will be pretty much a catastrophe for the Democrats in political terms?

The answer of course is no. Once again, a national law that mandates health insurance but has no affordable public option is doomed to failure, it is nothing more than 50 million new customers and a trillion dollar gift to the insurance companies.

Yes, the Democrats will take massive political damage from it, it won't drive down costs at all, and the Republicans can rightfully say that they warned America and can run in 2012 on overturning it. Yes, there's a real danger here that a bad bill like a 100% mandate, no public option plan would actually be worse than no bill at all, because millions of Americans will get booted from their company plan and will have to go it alone, driving costs up even more.

Without cost controls, companies will simply not be able to afford health insurance coverage for employees, period. It'll be a train wreck.

Obama has to know this. Congress sure as hell is aware of it.

What will Obama's plan on Wednesday include?

[UPDATE 1:38 PM] Surprise! Max Baucus's plan drops the public option for "health insurance co-ops". No public option plus mandates equals disaster.