Well, this is one the best ideas I've heard all day.
The White House and Senate Democratic leaders, seeing little chance of bipartisan support for their health-care overhaul, are considering a strategy shift that would break the legislation into two parts and pass the most expensive provisions solely with Democratic votes.
We here at the GOS could have told the White House and Senate Dems that there was little chance of GOP support for the health care legislation months ago.
According to the article, the first bill would include the overhauls and new regulations for the insurance industry; like requiring insurers to accept anyone, even those with pre-existing conditions. The new regulations have some bi-partisan support and are likely to pass with Republican votes.
The second bill would create the public option plan. The Dems would use reconciliation as the means to pass the bill if they didn't think the votes were there to pass it any other way.
Over the weekend, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius stated that the public option wasn't an "essential element" of a comprehensive bill. Apparently, this was a test for the Republicans, who failed miserably.
A senior Democratic congressional leadership aide said weekend statements were calculated to test Republican responses.
If this is true, maybe the White House is playing some type of elebenty millionth dimensional chess?
If a deal is not reached by mid-September, Mr. Baucus plans to present a bill that is likely to have little if any Republican support. At that point, Democrats will have to decide whether to proceed under the reconciliation process, which allows legislation to pass with a filibuster-proof 51 votes.
Of course, this is more "ifs", but it does seem that the Democrats are aware that the GOP will not help them pass the public option and they at least have some sort of game plan.