So it may turn out that Harry Reid was the hero in the public option after all.
Much of the hoopla surrounding Reid's decision centers around a tense Thursday night meeting between President Obama and Senate health care principles--including Reid and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY)--at the White House. But according to sources briefed on White House-Senate health care negotiations, things began boiling over earlier in the week, when a key question was, Who's going to take the blame when the public option doesn't make it in to the base health care bill?
{}
On the morning of the meeting, anonymous sources--and even some high profile senators--came forward to say that Reid was leaning very heavily toward backing the public option. And that's the news he and other senators brought to the White House that night.
"Reid actually asked Schumer to make the pitch," the first source said. When he did, "Obama was less than responsive and asked questions that suggested he preferred an option that could get the trigger and bipartisan support."
How the meeting ended remains unclear. But what we do know is that, early Friday morning--hours after the parties went their separate ways--Politico's Mike Allen reported that, according to a top administration official, Obama's preference was still for triggers, and he'd let the senators know that...read on
And mcjoan says that reconciliation may still be on the table after all.
This is the correct answer to the bleating of Joe Lieberman, and Blanche Lincoln, and Ben Nelson. If you don't want to be a part of the most critical domestic policy reform in generations, we can always do it without you.
"Sure, it's always an option," Reid said after leaving his press conference Monday, when he announced that he'd be pushing forward with a public health insurance option with an opt-out provision that would give states the right not to participate....
Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who is in charge of corralling and counting votes, also said that reconciliation is still being considered. "The failsafe on this is reconciliation," Durbin said. "I hope we don't reach it because you can only do a limited amount of things on reconciliation."
Reid's comments were from Monday, before Joe put on his show, which could mean that Reid's now definitely put it on the table.
You know how much the Villagers hate this idea, so what that means to mean is it's awesome.
