UPDATE: I put the denial in the body, sorry I was at work, didn't get to do this earlier. A bit late now, but better late than never.
UPDATE: see slinkerwink's comment below, Reid's office is denying the rumor. As we knew they would, and as they should.
Also: this really is not an alarmist freak-out diary. It is, as itswhatson writes below, an attempt to take the rumor as " as a prompt to keep these people accountable -- and if they find that a hassle, then they can just try to run a tighter ship."
Perhaps others have seen the piece reporting that an anonymous aide to Reid says he will likely cut the public option from whatever the Senate bill becomes.
Here's the link.
I don't take these rumors all that seriously, of course, but it seems like a good reason to do some calling today.
A spokesman for Harry Reid is aggressively shooting down this morning’s Times report that Reid has decided not to include a public option in the bill that will ultimately be voted on by the full Senate.
The Times quoted senior Senate aides — though not necessarily from Reid’s office — claiming that the health care bill he creates by merging the bills created by two key committees won’t ultimately have a public option in it.
But Reid spokesman Rodell Mollineau strongly disputed the story, saying there had been no decision and indeed that the process wouldn’t permit for a decision to have been made already.
“It would be wildly speculative of me to say that has been predetermined,” Mollineau told me in an interview.
Reid pointed out that Senators Chuck Schumer and Jay Rockefeller will introduce a public option amendment to the Finance Committee version of the bill. While Senate insiders don’t expect it to pass, Mollineau points out that deciding in advance that the final version won’t have a public option would needlessly prejudice Senators against tomorrow’s amendment.
Mollineau also reiterated that it would be foolish to declare in advance that the public option is dead in advance of negotiations over the final bill. He said that once the Finance Committee bill is done, Reid will sit down with at least one high level White House official, and with Senators Tom Harkin and Chris Dodd, the leading champions of the bill from the other Senate committee, to hammer out a final product.
“It would be wildly speculative of me to say what is going to be in that bill,” Mollineau said. “Right now, we don’t know.” Asked when we will know, Mollineau said: “We’ll have a better idea by the end of the week.”
First, the claim.
This paragraph appeared in this New York Times piece yesterday:
To appeal to Ms. Snowe, as well as to centrist Democrats like Senators Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana, the combined bill would not include a proposal for a government-run insurance plan, or public option, despite the clamoring of liberals who support it, senior Democratic Senate aides said.
So: anonymous aide regurgitating the thinking about Snowe and so-called centrist Dems, etc.
This morning, Greg Sargent writes (link above in intro):
Put it this way: Reid is now in charge. Anonymous senior aides say no public option in the combined Senate bill. No Reid aide is contradicting this on the record. So it’s hard not to see this as partly a reflection of Reid’s thinking.
No, it's not hard to see this as partly a reflection of Reid's thinking. It's also not hard to NOT see it as a reflection of Reid's thinking. His office has been expressing his support for the PO for ages, and though he hasn't made a strong statement in a while (er, make that ever, about anything, ever), this hardly seems like the moment he would decide not only to reverse positions, but to become responsible for killing the PO.
In any case, the existence of this rumor seems like a good excuse to step up the calls to Reid's office.
Let's clamor.
Phone: 202-224-3542 / Fax: 202-224-7327