"Merkley: Reid will move public option with majority-vote tactic if there's support."

[Clio the Leo]

Have you called your Senator today?

Merkley: Reid will move public option with majority-vote tactic if there's support

By Michael O'Brien - 02/23/10 12:30 PM ET
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) will seek a public option using a majority-vote procedure if he can get the votes, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) said Tuesday.

Merkley said that he thinks Reid would agree to proceed with a healthcare package reinserting the public option into the Senate's legislation, if enough senators sign onto the growing effort supporting it.

"He had a public option in his leader's amendment he put forward," Merkley said during an appearance on the liberal radio host Bill Press's podcast.

"I think that if we have the votes for it, he'll support it," Merkley added.

23 Democratic senators have signed onto a letter first offered by Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) urging Reid to use the budget reconciliation process, which sidesteps the usual, 60-vote threshold needed to pass most legislation, to put a public option back into the healthcare bill.

The public option had initially been taken out in a concession to win over enough centrist Democrats to pass the Senate's original healthcare plan. But since Republican Sen. Scott Brown (Mass.) won a special election giving the GOP enough votes to sustain a filibuster, Democrats have been more open to use the reconciliation process to finish healthcare.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/83147-merkley-reid-will-move-public-option-with-majority-vote-tactic-if-theres-support

[PHIMG]

1. Some serious hedging there

Listen folks, the long and short of this is, all you public option people HAVE BEEN HAD. To the Congress your support is just as irrelevant as us in the Medicare for All camp. They divorced you from supporting Single Payer to prevent the sort of grass roots uprising that would force thier hand. It was divide and conquer. They got you to go along with Obamacare in hopes of getting your public option and now it's a bait and switch and they are hoping that enough of you will just lick your wounds and continue to support hte insurance company profit protection act of 2010.

So they are going to keep feeing these "encouraging signs" up until the final bill passes without a public option.

We aren't going to get real healthcare reform in 2010, we're going to get a bailout for the big insurers - hey congress mandate and subsidize my defective product -- hey maybe Toyota can get this kind of deal!