It’s encouraging that Press Secretary Robert Gibbs threatened to use the budget reconciliation process if the health care bill stalls in the Senate. Other than a brief burst of optimism I had after Senator Paul Kirk was seated as Kennedy’s replacement, I have never believed that Obama could pass a public option through the Senate. The only chance I could see for doing that was to first pass a bill through the Senate that didn’t have a public option. This would allow Harry Reid to pass all the procedural hurdles up to the point that the Senate had to vote on the Conference Report. At that point, with both Houses having passed a health care reform bill, we’d be waiting for the historic vote on final passage. There would be the maximum possible amount of pressure on Democratic senators not to kill all the hard work made up to that point by denying the Majority Leader a procedural vote to bring the bill up. If a public option was going to survive, it needed to be introduced only at this final point in the process. That wouldn’t guarantee passage, but it would provide us with the best chance. And, if some lonely senator like Joe Lieberman or Ben Nelson decided to take the heat and kill reform at that point, it would be relatively easy to make the case for using the budget reconciliation process rather than let one or two insurance whores in the caucus stand in the way of historic reform.
Harry Reid decided to go in another direction. He decided to make the public option part of the base bill. As soon as he did that, it killed off all the momentum for a robust public option in the House. The leadership asked the Progressives to prove that they had the votes for it, and they couldn’t. It didn’t seem to matter too much because the robust public option was never going to pass the Senate anyway. It was, as Pelosi stated repeatedly, a chip to use in the Conference Committee. She wanted a robust public option in hand because she always assumed that the Senate version would lack any public option at all. The idea was that each side would compromise, and the end result would be a public option that was not tied to Medicare reimbursement rates. But, when Reid put exactly that type of public option in the base bill, there was no longer any need for the House to pass the stronger version. It was easier to give nervous centrists a break and only ask them to vote for a non-robust public option that more nearly resembled the Senate version. It shouldn’t make much difference in the end. The House and Senate would still wind up in the same place, they’d just start out with less of a divide.
But, of course, things didn’t turn out exactly that way. Pelosi didn’t gain extra votes once she dropped her push for a robust public option. Instead, the House conservadems got greedy and insisted on adding the Stupak-Pitts Amendment. Even then, Pelosi saw no spike in centrist support. She passed the bill with a mere two more votes than she needed, and one of those votes was from a Republican. It’s encouraging that Obama has announced that he finds the Stupak-Pitts language unacceptable, but it’s not clear that he can strip it out without losing the support of three congresspeople.
Meanwhile, Reid’s gambit appears to be failing, as he can’t line up 60 votes for the base bill. Unless something changes, Reid will be forced to withdraw his bill and reintroduce one that has no public option. Failing that, he could give up and go straight to the budget reconciliation process. But, unlike the scenario I crafted, where the blame for failing to pass something with a public option would come at the very end of the process and fall on Joe Lieberman or Ben Nelson, in this scenario the failure would come prior to the Conference Committee and fall solely on Reid for miscalculating and failing to lead his caucus. Far from demonstrating overwhelming support for the public option, he would have demonstrated that it was a non-starter in the Senate. Meanwhile, the House barely passed a bill that had ridiculous abortion restrictions and a non-robust public option. How could they be expected to turn around and pass a bill in reconciliation that is much stronger?
I know that the people pushing for a public option in the base Senate bill meant well, and they have convinced themselves that only through their efforts has a public option survived at all. But it is not that simple. The Progressives were pledged to vote against any bill that doesn’t have a robust public option, but they showed the emptiness of that threat when they couldn’t muster the votes to pass one and they backed down. Reid was pressured into introducing the public option prematurely, over the doubts of the White House, and now he’s left holding the bag.
Procedure is complicated and infuriating. But making the wrong calls on procedural moves has now imperiled the passage on any health care reform whatsoever, whether done under reconciliation or not.
For a change, I disagree with most of your analysis.
A lot of what you wrote is based on your view of momentum and who would be blamed depending on when reconciliation would be invoked.
I simply don’t buy that there is a significant difference whether reconciliation occurs earlier or later. Nor do I buy that Reid’s inclusion of a public option somehow caused the House to pass a less progressive version.
Or to put it differently, do you really think Lieberman would be acting differently had your recommended course of action played out? Whether the public option was included after the conference process or at the outset, Lieberman was still going to be an ass, and subject to the same kinds of pressures.
Due to our information and internet age, everyone knows quite well where any blame falls for a weak bill, and it’s not complicated: the blame falls on the handful of so-called moderate or centrist Democrats (and Lieberman).
One other point I’ve been meaning to make: you are right that the progressives’ threat not to support a bill without the public option has been exposed as empty. But what many people (not you) don’t appreciate is that the reason the threat was empty was not because progressives are “weak,” but because rational people knew damn well that progressives prefer some type of weak reform over nothing. In my opinion, the Left was merely fooling itself in thinking that their threats would ever be taken seriously in this context; perhaps, the moderates knew what mattered to progressives more than the progressives did themselves.
Finally, I believe your pessimism is still misplaced. Some form of HCR is going to occur. Call it a hunch on my part, but I’d bet money on it.
If you are interested, go back and look at the timing of two things.
here, I did it for you.
On October 22nd, Pelosi demands a whip count.
On October 27th, Reid announced non-robust PO in Senate base bill.
On October 28th, they announce death of robust public option in House.
Now, it could be argued that once the whip count failed, the administration chose to tell Reid to put a non-robust PO in the Senate version to compensate. But, unless they are craftier than has been reported, the House gave up the effort to whip once they realized that it was no longer necessary. Either way, the idea is to preserve at least some form of public option.
You’re showing a connection in time, but not causation. And we don’t know what would have happened had Reid declined to announce that a public option was part of his plan.
More importantly, I still don’t see any long-term negative effect of what Reid did. In other words, I’m not convinced that the endgame would be any different, even if the starting places might have been.
It all depends on what you are assuming the end result will be.
If the end result is a health care bill with no public option done under regular order, Reid’s move probably made that more likely. He isn’t going to withdraw the bill, start over, and then put the PO back in in Conference. That ship sailed. He could have tried it if he hadn’t lost on the PO up front.
If the end result is a health care bill with no public option done in reconciliation, Reid made that more likely because his move allowed the House to lock-in in a more conservative place, and also because he killed momentum for the PO in the Senate.
If the end result might have been a public option, either in regular order or under reconciliation, he pretty much blew that chance.
Unless he can pass this base bill, he killed off a public option. My strategy, and the one I believe strongly that the WH always envisioned, would have provided plenty of wiggle room.
Alright, I appreciate your replies, but I don’t think you’ve given any more evidence to support your “momentum” theory.
And I believe that, if this base bill fails, then it also follows that Reid would have been unsuccessful in getting it to pass after the conference process.
Our different view probably comes down to this: you believe that as the process goes on, there is increasing pressure on legislators not to stand in the way. There’s a certain logic to that, but that doesn’t make it correct in fact. I simply believe that the pressure on the wayward senators right now is so high that it really can’t be ratcheted up much more later.
That’s absurd.
First of all, no one is going to give a shit whether a member of Congress voted against something before they voted for it. There is very little price to be paid for voting against provisions of this bill provided that you ultimately vote for it on final passage.
In other words, the only vote that counts is the last one. If the last one is a vote for a successful filibuster, that is a brutal vote for a Democrat to carry. But, if that final vote is for a watered down best-we-could-do health care bill, well, that’s easier to live with.
Either you’re not getting my point or you’re choosing to distort it.
I’ll try again.
You have suggested that Reid would be more likely to get support for a PO had he waited to include that after the conference process. I say that the support will be no different, because there are the same pressure before and afterwards. You keep insisting that the momentum will be different, and I don’t buy it. Lieberman is going to be Lieberman, today and tomorrow.
Of course, no one cares if Lieberman or whoever votes for the bill later, after initially opposing it; but who is suggesting that will occur? My entire point is that if Lieberman (and I use him just as an example) isn’t supporting a PO when this comes up for a vote this month, he also would not have supported it had the PO come up for a vote only after the conference process.
Three responses:
Let’s not use Lieberman because of our personal animus. Let’s just use a generic conservadem.
Now I see where you’re coming from. I think I still disagree, but at least I understand you better.
Correct me if I’m wrong, and you still have the patience to read this.
Let’s assume that the Senate votes on Reid’s version in November, and that if it passes, they vote on the final version in January.
Your view is that it’s no big deal for conservadems to try and kill the PO in November, because they will still have the chance to vote for the final version in December. But killing the PO in December means effectively killing health care reform entirely.
It seems to me that you are making a number of assumptions here, and I’m honestly not sure whether each or all are justified:
First, you assume that, if conservadems kill the PO in November, they will still have a chance later to vote for another version of health care reform. You’re probably right here, but I don’t know that it’s a certainty.
Second, you assume that conservadems will not face much blowback if they vote for the final version, after having killed the PO. I suspect this depends a lot on geography. It might hold true for Lincoln, but I don’t believe it would hold true for Lieberman. (I admit Lieberman is a tricky one to discuss for other reasons, however.)
Third, you believe that the argument for reconciliation is significantly harder to make if Reid’s PO version fails to pass in November, because it will be unclear how much support a PO actually has in the Senate.
I disagree with this last point. Even now, we know that the PO has at least 50 votes. Maybe we don’t know if it has 58 rather than 53 votes, but so what? More fundamentally, I don’t believe that voters really care whether reconciliation is used at all.
well, your timing is screwed up on when the respective votes would happen, but that’s not really too important.
Starting with your first assumption, the Senate will not pass Reid’s version unless Snowe or Lieberman and all the other Dems vote for final cloture. They’ll get opening cloture to begin debate and amendments, but they can’t get final cloture. Reid won’t even try if he can’t change this, because it will just waste valuable time and make him look foolish. He will withdraw this bill and introduce Snowe’s version.
They’ll pass that, most likely, but it may not fly with the House. And, even if it does fly with the House, the PO won’t get put back in after having had to be pulled.
On your second assumption, once Reid reintroduces the bill with Snowe’s language, the talk of a PO will be dead and we’ll move on to fighting the next rearguard action. Provided that some form of reform passes (meaning that all, or nearly all) Dems in the Senate vote for it), there won’t be much animosity left over except among the most active activists. Not a problem, really.
On your third assumption, if the whole thing fails and has to go to reconciliation, it is doubtful that the House will pass anything stronger than what they just voted for. In fact, without the abortion language, they might not even pass what they just voted for. They’ll just look to pass whatever it was that failed on final passage, which will not include a PO.
Thanks for replying, and now I make my final point:
With regard to reconciliation, you say that the House will not pass anything stronger than they did initially. I agree, but didn’t mean to suggest otherwise. I’m only saying that I don’t believe Reid has made reconciliation a dicier proposition by including the PO now, rather than waiting as you believe he should have done.
By the way, in retrospect I think we were talking past each other somewhat because I was focused on your conclusion that “any” health care reform was now dicey, but most of the diary is actually about the chances for a PO.
well, I agree that my point is a bit nuanced. I see the PO as now entirely in Reid’s hands. But HCR itself could become impossible to pass if they get locked in between a Senate that won’t pass a PO and a House that won’t pass a trigger. That was always a risk, but the worse the PO fares in the Senate, the more likely we are to have #EPICFAIL.
Why do you keep saying Reid will be forced to withdraw it? What will force him?
this is simple. there is absolutely no reason to open debate, spend a month debating amendments, and then get to the end and fail to get cloture to pass the damn thing. Reid won’t even start that process unless he knows he has 60 votes to end debate.
as long as Lieberman and Snowe are promising to deny a final cloture vote, there is no point in even trying. He’ll pull the bill and introduce something (Snowe’s version) that can get their votes. Once that happens, there is no putting the PO back in. It’ll be dead.
No reason? The reason is, for one, to have the damn debate. It’s to have a showdown and let the ones who killed healthcare reform stand up and be counted and pay whatever price is to be paid. It’s to have some principles once in a while instead of bogus CYA “strategies”. It’s about being honorable once in a while.
If this is a losing fight, let the enemy be named in an honest vote. Saying “there is absolutely no reason to open debate” is simply restating your assertion, not providing evidence for it.
Dave…
Harry Reid isn’t going to waste a month in the Senate haggling over amendments and twisting arms for a bill that everyone knows is a dead duck. There isn’t even anything to be gained in honor by doing that. If that’s the situation, just go straight to reconciliation.
You’re buying into the beltway bullshit you so love to deride. Nobody knows what’s a dead duck until the duck is voted dead. Withdrawing a bill this foundational without a final vote is simply cowardly deception that makes the Democrats as bad or worse than the Republicans. You may be right about what Reid is going to do — it’s your approval of it that really pisses me off.
there’s very little here that I approve of.
I’m telling you what I fear will happen.
As for what I advocate, now that Reid has gone this route, he should fight to the end, as you suggest. But he must win, or he’s a total ass.
you know, it isn’t entirely fair to you, but the same situation presented itself to the House when they were deciding whether or not to impeach Clinton. They knew that the Senate would acquit him, so why bother? Well, they wanted to stand up for principle. So, they went ahead. And the Senate slapped them down, hard. The Dems won the midterms, and Newt was out of a job.
I think you’ve just achieved your personal best in reaching. The Dems didn’t win because the Senate “slapped down” the House, they won because nobody but the crazies were interested in the impeachment. As I recall the polls against impeachment were about in the same ball park as the polls are now in favor of HCR. Only the Village gives a shit about the Congressional doggy fucks that went into getting a result: they only care about the result. If Reid withdraws the bill — and you’re probably right that he will take the anti-democratic expedient — he takes the blame on himself and the party for the failure of results that will follow. Not only will an essential window of opportunity have been lost, but the lesson learned will be that the only thing Dems can be counted on to do is be suckers and cowards every single time.
The other reason is that when you just fold based on your secret count, you give ultimate power to every creepy grandstander that ever comes along to make threats because their threats are never tested. You make the Senate even more contemptible than it is. You swallow the Republican/Lieberman poison in advance so they don’t have to, and thereby shift the blame from them to yourself. It’s like some kind of martyr complex, and like I always say, fuck martyrs.
well, that’s why I said we shouldn’t empower these fuckers on the front-end, isn’t it?
Interesting that you call Reid’s recent play a “gambit”. It wasn’t a gambit; it was a grift.
If all of the Democrats (both centrists and progressives) don’t realize that their political survival (and President Obama’s) depends on getting any reform passed, then they are deluding themselves. If at the end of the day nothing gets passed, and these morons just throw their hands up and say “sorry folks, just wasn’t in the cards,” then they are absolutely fucked (and deservedly so). Seems like this would be enough motivation to figure out what people can agree on. If not, stand the fuck by…
Your analysis, booman, seems sadly spot on. The wild card, in my mind, is that this whole thing will have to actually work reasonably well. To be a success people will have to like it in some fundamental way. S.thing that comes to be seen as a burden will cripple Obama and the Democrats. Don’t they get this? The kind of wishy-washy ‘compromise’ that we usually see in Congress (protecting and enriching entrenched interests at the expense of the public) may not work here. Health care really isn’t very abstract; couple that with a mandate and you have s.thing that will really affect a lot of people. When will this realization kick in?
I’d love to disagree with you, Booman, but I don’t think your analysis is necessarily wrong. To some extent, we just can’t know what is going on behind the scenes. I think Bogenrim’s observation, that to NOT get this done is in effect Jim Jones style mass suicide for Democrats, is what keeps me thinking there’s more than meets the eye. I think the House vote was close because Pelosi (and Obama) allowed it to be close.
For example, on Saturday I watched bits and pieces of C-Span and then CNN’s coverage in the evening of first the Stupid (sic/sick) amendment vote and then the final vote on the bill. They replayed Pelosi and Obama footage from earlier in the day. I was struck by how much it looked like a done deal–they were not acting as if in false bravado mode, but rather as if they knew what the outcome would be. My question, then, was why didn’t a single analyst I heard on TV or in the blogosphere remark that Pelosi was doing some bargaining with a sizeable number of the recalcitrant blue dog types–in other words, with the exception of maybe a couple dozen definite no votes, she was negotiating about who would get to vote AGAINST the bill for their own local political purposes. It seemed to me that there weren’t 40 diehards, but rather more like 20 or so diehards and 20 persuadables that she ALLOWED to vote against it in some prearranged deal.
This is the sort of thing I envisioned as a best case scenario in the Senate, where you get cloture but then allow a few deal-making Senators like Lincoln to vote against it once you secure the 50 votes needed to pass.
I agree with you, Booman, that we can’t afford any more purity divas like Kucinich, especially when it comes to the Senate. So I think in the end even Bernie Sanders will be in on any deal, just like Weiner had to eventually put aside his heroic effort. I’ve felt all along that the goal is to get the very best deal possible in the cesspool of the Congress, and I think this is somewhat more organized than we are able to see at any given moment. Did Reid veer off the plan and make things more complicated, as you speculate? I don’t know, but I hope somehow that what he did had a larger purpose and was coordinated with the House and the White House, and that we just don’t see it yet.
Here’s my problem.
Once a congressperson goes on the record voting for or against something, it’s a pain in the ass to get them to change their vote later. That’s why we don’t need 60 something jerk-offs voting for an amendment to gut insurance coverage for reproductive services.
Pelosi shouldn’t be letting any Democrats trim their votes unless they’re planning on voting no on final passage anyway.
She should have been whipping for the strongest possible showing.
This is especially true if she was going to make a compromise like allowing a vote on Stupak-Pitts.
What I think is more likely is that the Dems just don’t have a lot of support for any form of public option, especially because no one thinks it can pass the Senate. The move by Reid was a signal (unconvincing, as it turned out) that a public option would be in the final bill. This was supposed to reassure house members and also allow Pelosi to drop the robustness of the PO. In combination, this should have given a huge boost the Dem numbers in the House. It didn’t. That’s why I am concerned.
Well I’m with you–I’m really concerned about how this has begun to play out. But I still go back to the political suicide watch: there are a certain relatively small number of Dems who feel they are better off as virtual Republicans, but for almost all of the rest of them, it would be catastrophic if this goes goes up in flames. Of course we’d all like them to act on principle and do the right thing, but what really motivates them is their own survival. And if doesn’t get done in some acceptable form, the consequences are going to be bad all around. It’s conceivable to me that Obama could survive it because of the weakness of the Republican field, but there are many, many others (including Reid) who will be finished if this doesn’t “succeed”. So I’m pinning my hopes on their collective, craven desire for political survival.
Better no HCR than a law that hurts poor people and working people. I have no interest in a law that is just PR and actually strengthens insurance company control.
I think that reconciliation is going to happen now or if they don’t think they can pull of the necessary reforms and it poisons the well they may have to do a gut check and see if they can go nuclear.
The House passing reform means Harry Reid has to get this done by December or he suffers politically back home. If he can pull off reform and the democrats can load a second stimulus in the budget through transportation spending for example; they will be in a better place for 2010.
This thing has three paths left: capitulation on the public option which Reid will not do, reconciliation, or the nuclear option.
I agree with this point.
I realize that a different, often inexplicable reality exists in the beltway, and among the three branches of “our” government.
However, it seems beyond illogical that Reid, and the White House, are eventually going to throw up their respective hands and just give up.
The consequences of that are so potentially dire–for the Obama administration and for Reid and for the Democratic Party–that most therein are clearly aware that failure is simply NOT an option. Far too much has been staked on getting this done, and this year.
If there were not the 50+ votes in the Senate, it would be one thing. But given, as was pointed out earlier, there ARE at least 51 votes for some form of public option vis a vis reconciliation, it is inconceivable that when push comes to shove, and there’s no choice, that Obama/Biden and those 50-odd Senators will just walk away without trying that route.
If they do, I’LL throw up MY hands and give up. The most significant priority of the administration, that they’ve staked so much on, and they would just walk away without eventually pulling out all of the stops, and using every avenue available to them? If they do, then it will be confirmed that they really believe in nothing, and/or that they’re compromised beyond redemption.
I still trust Obama, and am witholding judgment until the final result of this. He’s an extremely smart man, and there’s much going on behind the scenes that we here have no idea of.
My guess–they’ll finesse the hold-outs, and the process, as much as possible and for as long as is possible, do everything they can to hold those votes in the House, until a drop dead time that is probably
been decided upon already. After that, perhaps they
break the bill into pieces that are voted upon individually. The public option/deficit related components are left for the end, for the hammer to be dropped when the time comes.
I’m not saying that we’re going to be completely happy, or necessarily even a little happy, with the end result.
But it’s the end unless they get SOMETHING through, and I think everyone involved knows it.
I am actually hoping that the well is too poisoned to do reconciliation and that Lincoln and Nelson and Lieberman dig in and refuse to vote for cloture after bringing the bill to the floor.
At that point, rather than go through reconciliation, the White House and senate is going to have to go nuclear and eliminate the filibuster which means excellent chances at more progressive climate bill and financial reform and basically puts to rest worries about the 2010 elections since the death of the filibuster means the White House should have 51 senators and a majority of the House after 2010 and will be able to enact more legislation.
I’m praying the democrats get pushed into going nuclear; just as Reid was pushed to go into the public option. That would be the smart thing for progressives to agitate for citing the chaos in Cali resulting from the need for a super majority to pass a budget.
You make some good points. I think one of the diceyer points is how robust to make the public option. I think we need to use a proven model in our own country. There’s only one that I’m aware of that’s doing what it set out to do and staying in the black. Could this model work on a larger scale? http://cli.gs/23yYaM/
Hit the moving target:
from Nov. 3rd:
“There never was any chance that the Senate would pass a robust public option (pegged to Medicare reimbursement rates) in the original bill that they would seek to merge with the House bill. In fact, no one I know thought that the Senate would pass any form of a public option in their original bill. If there was going to be a public option, it was going to be added in the Conference Report, and the impetus for it would be from the House legislation. Unfortunately, it turned out that even the House cannot pass a robust public option.”
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2009/11/3/03611/6276
“When you realize that the Senate cannot pass a robust public option without resorting to the budget reconciliation process because of the opposition within their own ranks, then what Reid did actually strengthened the bill. He either assured that it would be filibustered by a lonely couple of Democrats or that a public option would pass.
“This isn’t how I would have done it, nor how the WH originally planned to do it. But the House was supposed to pass a stronger bill that would be watered down in conference. That became less necessary once the Senate assured Pelosi that a public option would be in their bill. They still meet in the middle, it’s just that they both start out closer to it.”
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2009/11/3/03611/6276#6
“The senate bill is now stronger than anticipated because it includes a public option. The House bill is now weaker than anticipated because it’s public option is not robust.
” As for the end result in conference, if we get that far, nothing has changed except that some form of public option is assured (so long as Reid doesn’t pull the bill or the PO isn’t stripped out by amendment). So, provided that we achieve cloture pre-conference, the Senate bill is stronger .
“If, however, the bill stalls in the Senate because of Reid’s decision, then we’ll either have to start all over again or go to budget reconciliation. In either of those two cases, the momentum for a PO will be far less than if the bill had stalled under the plan I, and the WH preferred.”
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2009/11/3/03611/6276#14
“Reid’s gambit appears to be failing, as he can’t line up 60 votes for the base bill. Unless something changes, Reid will be forced to withdraw his bill and reintroduce one that has no public option. “
No kidding???!!! WHO’d ever have imagined that!? LOL!!!
Uh, me?:
” From one of the press accounts I read, the problem is just that: the Republicans won’t remove the public option for the very fact that it serves them as the excuse they’ll offer to the public for their votes against this legislation. And, though you and I and just about everyone else here knows that they’d have also voted against the bill without that provision, that’s the excuse they’ll offer to their partisans and it’s the excuse those partisans will accept as valid.
“That represents an undeserved ‘gift’ of sorts to the Republicans who’ll not only, at least as they see it and hope it to be, will kill the bill, but also have a ready rationale for who deserves the blame for the bill’s failure; in their scheme, it will be the Democrats, for their having put the “poison pill” public option in.
” So, in this light, the choices will be either to remove the public option (that is, Democrats would have to ‘drop it’ from their Conference Committee negotiating claims) or face what they’re sure to understand will be the bill’s failure to get the required 60 votes. “
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2009/11/3/03611/6276#10
You ask:
“How could they be expected to turn around and pass a bill in reconciliation that is much stronger?“
Well, here, meet this guy, who argued on October 27th,
“By putting the public option in the base bill, it requires 60 votes to strip it out. I don’t think there are 20 Democrats who are willing to do that, so it looks like it’s going to be quite a challenge to figure out how to satisfy Lieberman. If Lieberman’s mind cannot be changed, then this move of Reid’s has just put the whole reform effort at risk. It would actually be better for Lieberman to join the filibuster on the front end so we don’t risk wasting the next two months debating something that cannot pass. In that case, Reid would substitute something more palatable to the asshats who represent the insurance industry and pass the damn thing. Yeah, there would be amendment introduced to put the public option back in, and it would fail while getting over 50 votes.
” That would set up the argument for the public option. It passed the House, got a majority in the Senate, is supported by the White House, and is popular in the polls. In the Conference Committee, they would put back in the language for the public option, and dare Lieberman and any other members of the caucus to kill the president’s health care reform in the final cloture vote when it is inches away his signing pen.
“It’s the only way this can work,…”
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2009/10/27/222529/61
Remember? This is the “famous” “momentum” you’ve been urging for some time; Over and over, you urged that, according to this (piece of absurd wishful-thinking), they wouldn’t dare kill the reform bill at that point—assuming all along, that they’d eventually get to “that point.”