Dick Durbin on Joe Lieberman's "concerns":
Transcript:
DURBIN: I hope we can move to a point where we satisfy Joe Lieberman’s concerns that this does not end up being a government debt, but creates a public option.
MR. GREGORY: But let’s get to a bottom line, which is, is it negotiable? I’ve talked to Senate sources who say there is a backup plan, which is that you ultimately scrap the opt-out option, you put in a trigger, which means that somewhere—there’s no public option; down the road, if there’s not adequate competition, a public plan gets triggered. That’s how you might get centrist Democrats and mi... it’s how you get Senator Snowe as well, potentially. Is that negotiable?
SEN. DURBIN: There are many variations on the theme. I am committed to public option. I think we’ve put together a good bill. We are open because we want to pass this bill. At the end of the day we want insurance to be more affordable, we want to stop the insurance industry abuses, we want to give American people a choice in this decision.
MR. GREGORY: So the public option is negotiable.
SEN. DURBIN: They don’t have to...
SEN. FEINSTEIN: Yeah.
SEN. DURBIN: It has been. Putting in the opt-out was clearly a variation on the theme from the beginning.
Translation: Even though 56 Democratic Senators -- and a solid majority of the nation -- support a public option, and even though the public option in the Senate bill has already been watered down, some Democrats are willing water it down even further (or perhaps kill it altogether) to win Joe Lieberman's and Blanche Lincoln's votes.
There's a certain logic to that line of thinking, if you accept the proposition that this is a "must-pass" piece of legislation.
But if you do accept that proposition, then wouldn't you also be compelled to put reconciliation on the table, so the bill could pass with 50 votes? Wouldn't you be compelled to put the committee chairmanships of Lieberman and Lincoln on the line to give you greater leverage to sway their votes?
The fact that the Senate leadership isn't doing either of those things sends a pretty clear signal: they may want a public option, but they aren't willing to really fight for one, at least not one that does anybody any good.