Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) said on MSNBC today that he’s still “agnostic” on a possible compromise for states to opt out of a public option, but noted that no one presented such an idea during any of the committee hearings.
“My initial reaction was, states have the authority right now, if they want to establish a so-called public option within their state, there’s no prohibition against that in federal law. There’s nothing to keep them from doing it,” he said. “I guess the idea of having a state opt into a national option might be the federal government would provide assistance to states that want to do it.”
“But I’m not sure that that’s what’s being thought about. So I’m sort of agnostic until I learn more about the proposal,” he said.
And he wondered aloud, why did no one offer this idea in an amendment when the HELP Committee (which Bingaman is a member of) or any other committee held hearings?
“Frankly, we just went through a couple weeks of markup and there was ample opportunity for that to be put forward as an amendment. I never saw an amendment offered involving that concept,” he said.
MSNBC’s Ed Schultz asked if the idea is a “curveball” to stall for time.
“I don’t want to characterize it as a curveball. It may be something that merits serious consideration,” Bingaman said.
He also said that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has not asked his opinion on the public option.
