The way Utah's junior senator sees it, once Congress reconvenes — after a month of often-raucous encounters with the public — the health-care debate will go in one of three directions.

Bob Bennett outlined these with the kind of deliberate, soft-spoken self-assurance he regularly brings to editorial-board meetings at this newspaper.

No. 1 — Nothing passes. The whole idea of reform crashes and burns on a heap of town-hall protest placards.

No. 2 – The president and Congress decide to pass only health-insurance reform instead, making rules about pre-existing conditions, portability, etc., and then call it a day, making sure to declare a glorious victory.

No. 3 – President Barack Obama's plans come crashing down, but all parties decide to start over from scratch with some new assumptions as a basis for the debate.

It's the third option Bennett is rooting for. That's the only one that would allow for his bill to be considered.

Even though you live in his state, you may not have heard of his plan, which has been lost in the blaring, mostly off-key brass bands of death panels and creeping socialism. But there are faint signs the Bennett-Wyden "Healthy Americans Act" (Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, lends political balance to the bill), has been gaining a little momentum during this congressional recess.

There are two reasons for this. One is that it is supposed to not add a cent to the deficit, according to the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Commission on Taxation.

The other is that it would provide people with real choice, which means real competition among health insurers.

Which brings me to a somewhat uncomfortable question. If you are a self-professed free-market lover who opposes any type of health reform, just exactly what is it that makes the current system market-driven?

A company hires you, then offers you a health plan. If you're lucky, you get a choice of a few plans, but that's it. Pick one, and you pretty much have to stick with it, except perhaps during a small window that appears once a year.

The Bennett-Wyden bill would require everyone to get health insurance — just as all drivers now must insure their cars. Then it would allow everyone to choose from a wide array of plans regulated by the government. Premiums would be adjusted to incomes.

As the New York Times' David Leonhardt wrote last week, "The longer-term advantage would be that health insurance would become fully subject to the brutal and wonderful forces of the market. Insurers that offered better plans … would win more customers."