Public Option – And Then There Was None

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If all goes as planned, a health care bill will be signed into law by Saturday March 20, albeit without a public option.

As soon as Thursday or Friday, the House would pass the health care bill approved by the Senate in December. The House would immediately approve a package of changes in a separate bill, using a procedure known as budget reconciliation, to avoid the threat of a Republican filibuster in the Senate.

Mr. Obama would sign the Senate health care bill, making it the law of the land. The budget reconciliation bill would go to the Senate, where Republicans intend to offer dozens of amendments and points of order in an effort to alter or stop it. Assuming they are able to fend off the Republican blocking efforts, Democrats could pass the reconciliation package with a simple majority vote, amending the health bill in a way that makes it acceptable to Democrats in the House and the Senate and to Mr. Obama. The president would then sign the reconciliation bill, completing the process.

And voila!, it’s done. While Republicans will cry out in protest that it is being done via the reconciliation process, what they neglect to point out is that health care bills have already been passed in both the House and Senate.  It is the Senate bill which the House will vote on which will be signed by the President.  Reconciliation will only come into play once the bill is signed and it will only affect the House amendments.  So the process has not been circumvented despite what Republicans claim.

As for the public option…

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said on Thursday that she would not include a public option in a health care reconciliation package that the House will send to the Senate.

“We’re talking about something that is not going to be part of the legislation,” Pelosi said, noting “with sadness” that the public insurance option won’t be part of legislation. “I’m quite sad that the public option is not in there,” she said.

Fear not. They’ll take care of it in Obama’s second term.  What we do know for sure is that the entire right-wing noise machine will be blasting away all of next week propagating every lie they can imagine.  This week, the death panels nonsense resurfaced with a vengeance.  When you don’t have a decent argument to make, lying is your best friend.

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