Bill O'Reilly for Socialism

On his show, the O'Reilly Factor, Bill "Papa Bear" O'Reilly is known for tearing down almost all liberal causes and in the past has called President Obama a 'Communist,' but then decided to slander him a little less by labeling him a 'Socialist.' So, When Bill O' The Clown talks, we should all just tune out? He has nothing relevant or insightful to bring to the table, right?

Wrong?

Bombastic Fox News host Bill O'Reilly made a rather notable policy pronouncement on Wednesday's show: he supports the creation of a government-managed health care plan if it provides working Americans with an affordable option to other private insurance plans.

In other words, he supports the public option now being hotly debated in Congress.

This is getting ridiculous. Just last month Papa Bear was decrying health care reform and blasting the public option as socialism. Who can I trust now if Bill O'Reilly is for a government run health care option? Hell has officially frozen over.

Seriously though, Bill O'Reilly makes a great case for the public option itself, possibly a better one than many Democrats are currently making, and understands why the public option is essential to meaningful health care reform. Personally I'm just surprised that Mr. O'Reilly has apparently gained enough brain power in a month to understand the simple facts: the public option brings costs down.

I want, not for personally for me, but for working Americans, to have a option, that if they don’t like their health insurance, if it’s too expensive, they can’t afford it, if the government can cobble together a cheaper insurance policy that gives the same benefits, I see that as a plus for the folks.

Sounds like something a moderate Democrat would say in Congress, right? That was Bill O'Reilly talking. O'Reilly has essentially parroted President Obama's 'socialist' talking point on health care, that private insurance companies are not truly competing in a free market and a government run health care option would help bring the costs down for both consumers and the industry.

Howard Dean said it best:

Real health care reform that includes a new public health insurance option would give Americans a real choice and not reward for-profit health insurers with 47 milllion new customers. Real health care reform that includes a new public health insurance option would cut out the administrative waste of private insurers and begin changing the way health care is delivered. Real health care reform that includes a new public health insurance option could adopt the kind of payment reforms that would start to “hold down long-term growth in health spending” and encourage providers to deliver care more efficiently. We know that premiums in the public option would be about 10 percent lower and that a real robust plan that piggy backs off of Medicare’s infrastructure could save us somewhere between $75 billion and $150 billion over 10 years.

The public option is essential to bringing down the long term, skyrocketing costs of health care. Without a public option, health care reform loses its teeth and essentially becomes the ‘The Insurance Industry Profit Protection And Enhancement Act.'

Who really knows if Bill O'Reilly is truly for a government run option, or if he is for private exchanges, or non-profit co-operatives, or if he even knows what the hell he's talking about for that matter. What is important is that the argument for the public option in some way has begun to resonate with Mr. O'Reilly, at least to the point where he believes the argument is somewhat compelling. Will there be a public option in the final bill, if Max Baucus has his way then no. But that is only one of five committees. The President still wants a public option, the people want a public option, heck even doctors want a public option. Health Care Reform is certainly not dead. In fact, we are closer to the finish line than we have ever been before.