Nothing has been murkier or more opaque than the last month’s worth of discussions over how or even whether to revive the seemingly moribund health care reform effort. But it’s starting to seem like Democrats may actually decide to go ahead with what they could have and should done a month ago — have the House pass the existing senate bill and then pass a companion piece of legislation to ‘fix’ the first bill, which will be pushed through the senate using reconciliation, i.e., 50 vote rules. (One of the funniest parts of this is watching the DC press refer to this as resorting to a “majority-vote procedure.” That’s what it’s come to.)
On a local TV interview show on Friday Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) basically said it’s the plan, that they will use ‘reconciliation’, and that they’ll finish within the next 60 days.
Another part of the equation is this. Earlier this year there were pretty clearly 50 votes for a public option in the Senate. Just not 60. But if you’re going to go the reconciliation route and push through a bill with 50 votes (remember, Biden’s the tie-breaker, so they don’t need 51), why not just add a public option too? Given all that’s happened, I find it very hard to believe that’s going to happen. Indeed, at this point, I need to see a lot before I’m persuaded anything is going to happen at all. But it’s a question they’re going to have to face.
