The Montana Democrat who chairs the Senate Finance Committee yesterday breathed new life into the growing calls to create a government-run competitor to private health insurers.

How so? Baucus did it by omitting the so-called public option from his own reform proposal.

His plan clearly fails to measure up on the key issue of driving down health costs, experts said. So that should strengthen the case even more for a Medicare-like health plan for the under-65 uninsured who cannot find affordable private coverage.

What's more, there's a real question as to whether the Baucus plan to put health coverage within reach of more than 30 million uninsured Americans would put them in a Catch-22 situation.

While the plan includes a sensible mandate for almost everyone to obtain coverage, and offers subsidies to families earning up to three times the poverty rate, the cost of that insurance still could be beyond the reach of many. Fellow committee member Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D., W. Va.) refused to support the Baucus plan on just those grounds.

Both issues point to the need for a public option, which remains the best hope to tame health-care costs that continue to gallop far ahead of inflation.

Of course, doing a double-fake on this issue probably wasn't Baucus' intent. In fact, the senator steered clear of a government-run insurance plan favored by many Democrats in a plea to win Republican support - so far, unsuccessfully. His compromise: the creation of private, nonprofit health insurance cooperatives to compete with private insurers.

The senator wisely held the cost of the plan to the lowest of any congressional proposal. The 10-year price tag of $856 billion will be paid by restraining growth in Medicare spending, taxing gold-plated company health plans, levying other industry fees, and requiring that most people purchase coverage.

The proposals embody much of what President Obama hopes to see in a health-care reform, including needed consumer protections to prevent insurers from refusing or canceling coverage when people get sick.

So, there's no question that Baucus has moved the ball forward. When the finance committee takes up the nitty-gritty of crafting the legislation in the coming weeks, its members will have a solid base of ideas to build upon.

But even the middle-of-the-road approach offered by Baucus seems unlikely to win much GOP support. In fact, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky denounced the plan as "yet another thousand-page, trillion-dollar government program."

The value of Baucus' work, however, may prove to be that it encourages Democratic lawmakers to take the bold action necessary to achieve real health-care reform to cover the uninsured.