We are now entering the final insult phase of Health Care by the Democratic Party.
Dick Durbin went on record to state that he would whip the Senate against any consideration for “public option” related amendments to be brought up in that chamber — even though over 40+ Senators are already formally on record in favor of supporting having it added during reconcilliation. His excuse? The House would never agree to it. The same House that had already passed it last year. Keep in mind that the original reason why the Senate dropped the public option, was because it did not have 60 votes — not 50. Simply getting 50 was never (originally) a problem.
Durbin has since said that he will strongly support the public option if (and only if) the House moves to add it back first (before the Senate acts) during the reconcillation process. So Durbin is trying to fool people into thinking that we would have a public option — but it is just the House that is the obstacle (the same House that had already passed it last year). In fact, Durbin could allow the public option amendment, and whip the Senate in favor of it..and then make the House vote on that.
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Meanwhile, over in the House, Nancy Pelosi is now saying that she will never take up the public option because the U.S. Senate could not ever pass the bill. But the Senate never had a problem with 50 people (it had been 60 that was the original problem), and already 40+ Senators have come out on their own and publically signed a statement pledging support for a Senate public option. Given Durbin’s artifical and phony requirement that the House must act first, Nancy Pelosi could add the public option, if she really wanted to, into the House version — as we know the House had already passed a bill last year with the public option included.
But now Nancy Pelosi (like Joe Lieberman) only supports a gutted House bill that is completely stripped of the public option. See: Pelosi Blocks Public Option. Of course, Pelosi wants to just blame it all on the Senate, where getting 60 votes had been the
problem — not getting 50.
“We’re talking about something that is not going to be part of the legislation.”—Nancy ‘Impeachment is off the table‘ Pelosi, March 12, 2010