Via Jane, The Hill is reporting that the number of Congressional Progressives standing firm behind a no robust public option, no bill pledge has slipped to from 60 in July to 46. For the purposes of this story, robust means a public option that reimburses providers at a rate 5 percent above Medicare.
Liberals want a public option that is tied to Medicare rates plus 5 percent. Blue Dogs and other centrist Democrats want rates to be negotiated individually with providers....
Liberal and centrist leaders agree that the debate is moving in the direction of negotiated rates. It’s disappointing to liberal leaders, who scrambled Wednesday and Thursday to prove that their Medicare-based version had overwhelming support among Democrats.
"The momentum is to pass something," said Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.). "For some people, negotiated rates is the easiest path. But negotiated rates effectively kills the public option."
Liberal leaders brought the names of 150 Democratic supporters of the Medicare-rates approach to a meeting with Pelosi on Thursday, according to a Democratic source. It’s not clear if that was enough to get her to shift back to that approach....
But Grijalva noted that 46 members recently signed a letter pledging to vote against the centrist plan. In the numbers game of the House, that is significant, because Republicans are expected to unite against the healthcare bill. So if 39 Democrats oppose the plan, it wouldn’t get the 218 votes needed to pass. There are 52 Blue Dogs, as well as many other centrist members not in the coalition.
More discouragingly, the story is reporting that Pelosi is veering toward the Blue Dog negotiated rates position. Just as a reminder for Speaker Pelosi and those "fiscally responsible" Blue Dogs, the stronger public option scores way ahead of the Blue Dog version, according to the CBO, $85 billion better, to be exact.
Now isn't the time for Pelosi and Progressives to start wavering. It's not the time for pilot programs or any other alternative to a robust public option. The strong House position has fueled the progressive engine that's kept the public option alive for this long, and has not only kept alive, made it essential--Harry Reid says the public option is going to be in the Senate bill.
That's an admission that a form of public option is non-negotiable. Now we start pressing the form of that public option. The votes are there in the House now, to hold firm. In the Senate, 51 votes will be there, and if they go reconcilliation, they only need 50. Because there aren't going to be 10 Democratic Senators willing to vote against healthcare reform.
And as luck would have, there's a handy DFA-led petition drive (spearheaded by DFA, FDL, and joined by Daily Kos, Democrats.com, and Open Left) that you can sign to send that message to our Progressive friends in the House. We'll stand united behind them for as long as they keep up the fight.
Update: Greg Sargent has some very good news from the House:
pecifically: House progressive leaders have been counting up how many members — beyond just progressives — will support the strongest version of the public option, i.e., the one tied to Medicare rates plus five percent.
The number so far, a House aide familiar with the count tells me: 170 firm supporters. That’s way beyond the 83 members of the House who make up the Congressional Progressive caucus.
What’s that mean for the public option? Well, the bill needs 218 votes to pass. That means it needs another 48 Dems to get on board, out of another 61 Dems who are presumed gettable — 23 Dems who are undecided, and another 38 who have not yet been asked their position, or "whipped."
With 170 "firm supporters" for the strongest option why would Pelosi need to go looking for alternatives?