Here we go again: earlier this morning, Kent Conrad jumped on Fox to trot out his favorite line of argument -- that the public option just might not be able pass the U.S. Senate, so we ought to have co-ops instead.
Given that it was Conrad, the interview started out about as well as you could hope for. He conceded that by choosing negotiated rates instead of Medicare + 5, Reid's plan for the public option represents a compromise.
But quickly it went downhill from there, as Conrad said he wasn't "at all certain it would have the votes in the Senate." Conrad suggested that Reid should consider co-ops, the the "not-for-profit cooperative approach that I’ve proposed, that is not government-run, not government-controlled."
Conrad didn't mention that Reid's proposal already does include co-ops in addition to the public option. He also didn't offer a substantive argument against a public option with negotiated rates, but said "at the end of the day, if the votes aren’t available, then modifications are going to have to be made." Asked about whether he thought health care reform would spill into 2010, Conrad said "it could could get resolved this year, but it’s very, very difficult to do."
Watch the interview:
With Conrad adding his voice to the anti-public option bellyachers within the Democratic caucus, it's looking increasingly likely that Senate Democratic leadership will have to put reconciliation back on the table in order to continue moving forward on health care reform with a public option.