Senators seek to put OPM in charge of health care public option

By Anna Edney CongressDaily December 5, 2009

Ten moderate and liberal Senate Democrats meeting on a public option for the healthcare overhaul bill closed in on an agreement Saturday night to hand the Office of Personnel Management responsibility for administering a national non-profit public option instead of the Health and Human Services Department.

"Yeah, there's sort of a, sort of a kind of a general agreement on where we're headed on this thing," Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, said. "There's still some details, right, the devil's in the details."

"I think we're pretty well set on OPM," Harkin said.