I Got Your Public Option. Right Here, Pal.
And now it’s time for some good news!
Reid Lacks Votes for Health Insurance Public Option
Oct. 28 (Bloomberg) — U.S. Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid doesn’t have the 60 votes he needs to win approval of a government-run health-insurance program.
Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman, an independent who organizes with the Democrats, said he will oppose the so-called public option. At least four Senate Democrats criticized the idea and won’t commit to backing their party, and the two Republicans who have signaled a willingness to support health- care legislation said they won’t vote for the program.
After handing out goodies and making deals with lobbyists, the next step in “how a bill becomes law in a “D” majority Congress” is handing out goodies and making deals with fellow Congressmen. 
It seems the legislation needs the path to single payer, the so-called “public option” to be forced through the House.
House health reform will have public option: Pelosi
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The health reform bill making its way through the House of Representatives will include a public insurance option, but negotiations are continuing on the details of the plan, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Friday.
“At the end of the day we will have a public option” in the House bill, Pelosi told a news conference.
She noted it was possible the Senate might include a public insurance option in its final health reform bill. As a result, negotiations over the House bill were not just about the public option but are looking at the shape of a final bill that could be approved by both chambers, Pelosi said.
Both the Senate and the House have approved multiple health reform bills that must now be molded into a final bill that can be approved by each chamber. The two bills will then have to be reconciled for final adoption.
Of course, precisely whatever is in those “multiple bills” is a secret and everything is being “negotiated” behind closed doors.
Pelosi has said the legislation must have the path to single payer, the so-called “public option.”
Remember how stupid they must think we are… this is so funny, it’s worth repeating.
In an appearance at a Florida senior center, the Democratic leader referred to the so-called public option as “the consumer option.” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., appeared by Pelosi’s side and used the term “competitive option.”
Both suggested new terminology might get them past any lingering doubts among the public—or consumers or competitors.
I’m not convinced. Are you?
“You’ll hear everyone say, ‘There’s got to be a better name for this,’” Pelosi said. “When people think of the public option, public is being misrepresented, that this is being paid for with their public dollars.”
Pelosi said that was a misconception and that any taxpayer money used to start up the public option would be repaid. She also said such an option would ultimately drive down government health care costs.
It’s taxpayer money, Speaker Nancy Pelosi. It won’t be repaid to taxpayers either.
Pelosi: Health care ‘public option’ needs new name
As we say in New Jersey: I Got Your Public Option. Right Here Pal.
Reid’s Bait-and-Switch Tactics
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) had two problems. How would he get the healthcare bill out of the Senate Finance Committee without revealing the glaring potential fissures in his party over the public option on healthcare? And how could he lend a veneer of bipartisanship to a one-party bill?
He couldn’t allow a vote on final passage out of the committee with a public option in the bill because he knew that he would lose Democrats and would have no GOP support. But real compromise was always out of the question. He wanted his public option. So he evolved a strategy where the only bill that would be voted on in committee would be one that did not have a public option, all the while planning for the final product to have one.
Here it comes…
So he used the bait of a bill with no public option to hook moderate Democrats like Blanche Lincoln (Ark.) and the gullible Republican Olympia Snowe (Maine).
When the bill emerged from Finance, by a lopsided 15-9 vote, it restored to healthcare reform the momentum that had stalled due to the public outrage so evident during the August recess.
Then the dexterous Reid capitalized on that momentum to put the public option back into the bill, reversing the commitment to compromise that allowed the bill to clear the committee in the first place.
This tactic of bait-and-switch offers a foretaste of what Reid will attempt on the Senate floor. He obviously hopes to replicate these tactics in getting the bill through the Senate.
Dick Morris knows how this works. He has been there.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) had two problems. How would he get the healthcare bill out of the Senate Finance Committee without revealing the glaring potential fissures in his party over the public option on healthcare? And how could he lend a veneer of bipartisanship to a one-party bill?
He couldn’t allow a vote on final passage out of the committee with a public option in the bill because he knew that he would lose Democrats and would have no GOP support. But real compromise was always out of the question. He wanted his public option. So he evolved a strategy where the only bill that would be voted on in committee would be one that did not have a public option, all the while planning for the final product to have one.
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Receive news alertsSo he used the bait of a bill with no public option to hook moderate Democrats like Blanche Lincoln (Ark.) and the gullible Republican Olympia Snowe (Maine).
