March 25, 2010 08:05 PM UTC

updated: Public Option now in limbo

•  
• by: wade norris

originally titled

‘no excuse for not introducing a Public Option amendment now’

but since the bill passed the house again, it is now law, so on to the next issue.

Who will introduce a stand alone Public Option?

The purpose of the Bennet Letter

http://whipcongress.com/letter…

Dear Leader Reid:

We respectfully ask that you bring for a vote before the full Senate a public health insurance option under budget reconciliation rules.

Respectfully,

Michael Bennet (D-CO), U.S. Senator

Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), U.S. Senator

Jeff Merkley (D-OR), U.S. Senator

Sherrod Brown (D-OH), U.S. Senator

I hope one of these 4 senators will lead the charge and stay with the spirit of the letter they crafted.

the evidence of the missed opportunity:

cont’d

http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

Will they do it? Well, they’ll probably opt for the path of least resistance, which would tell you no. But it’s certainly worth considering. Democratic counter-planning for the Republican filibuster-by-amendment appears to have sapped GOP resolve. It might not be a bad time to at least give the public option (or some other similar item) a road test with the Byrd Rule. If it doesn’t work, you’ve learned important lessons in advance of writing the next budget resolution and any attendant reconciliation instructions. And since you’ve always got the option of having the House agree to the Senate changes with nothing added in about an hour, you can always just double back and pass that instead and close out the game.

More from Mr. Waldan at Congress Matters

http://congressmatters.com/sto…

If Democrats can demonstrate their willingness to adopt a public option amendment in both houses and to bet on its Byrd Rule worthiness — and they were willing to make its inclusion the penalty for Republican points of order being levied against the bill as currently written — we might get through the Byrd Rule challenges a little quicker than we might otherwise, as Republicans opt to drop their points of order rather than face losing on the public option, to boot.

But that only works if the leadership is willing to make a credible threat on the public option. And of course, that depends on whether or not they believe it would survive the Byrd Rule.

If not, there might perhaps be some other issue about which they’d be more certain that they could use to create the same leverage. Medicare buy-in? Medicaid expansion? Some other provision that puts a silver lining on having to deal with losing on Republican points of order?

I understand the desire to get the bill finished unchanged. But if the decision is taken out of Democratic hands, they can opt to do something with the situation, or not.

Or, they can make the decision to aggressively pursue points of order more difficult (or at least more weighty) for Republicans, by laying out what the “punishment” for striking provisions of the bill is. And if it’s a public option amendment, or Medicare buy-in, then the deal gets offered: drop your points of order, let the bill pass, and go on your way, or else this thing gets finished with one or more of the listed additions of the Democrats’ choosing.

This is explained here by Ryan Grim

Byrd Rule To Send Health Care Back To House, Rules Parliamentarian

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…

Byrd Rule To Send Senate Health Care Bill Back To House

Senate Republicans succeeded early Thursday morning in finding two flaws in the House-passed health care reconciliation package…the upshot is that Republicans will succeed in at least slightly altering the legislation, which means that the House is once again required to vote on it.

The ruling might give Democrats another option — the public one.

Democratic leadership no longer has to worry that additional amendments would send it back to the House, since it must return to the lower chamber regardless. The Senate is now free to put to the test that much-debated question of whether 50 votes exist for a public option. Democrats could also elect to expand Medicare or Medicaid, now that they only need 50 votes in the Senate and the approval of the House.

The question then becomes whether House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) could pass the reconciliation changes with a public option. She has long maintained that the House has the votes to do so. Indeed, it did so in late 2009…

The Huffington Post interviewed House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) on Wednesday evening and asked if he thought he could have gotten the public option back through a second time, when the House voted on Sunday, even without those members who had left. “Yes, sir,” he said emphatically. Clyburn added that the problem for the public option has never been in the House. The problem has been in the Senate. And now the upper chamber has a chance to vote on it.

Finally – from Mr. Sirota

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…

Senate Bill Going Back to the House – Can We Now Get a Public Option Vote?

Let’s take Sen. Michael Bennet (D) and some Colorado progressive groups at their word when they say the only reason they have previously opposed offering a public-option amendment to the Senate reconciliation bill is because if it passes, the bill would then have to be sent back to the House. They say that having to send it back to the House would “complicate” matters…

(but because of the Byrd rule)

… the bill is going back to the House anyway, the Senate still has time to amend the bill with a public option, and the top House Democratic leaders are on the record saying they could pass the public option. Additionally, the New York Times notes that “the parliamentary process playing out on the Senate floor gives (Democrats) a rare chance to enact (the public option) with a simple majority, a chance unlikely to come around again soon.” (this latter point is a key one for the “let’s wait for a standalone bill later” crowd – I’ll repeat what the Times reports: the specific chance we have right now is “a chance unlikely to come around again soon.”)

So I ask what we asked yesterday at our rally at Sen. Bennet’s office: Will our senator now fulfill his promise to push a public option using reconciliation?

When will the PO bill be introduced? And will it have any chance to get 60?

the floor is yours.