Greg Sargent highlights a portion of a Roll Call story [sub. req.] on how healthcare negotiations are likely to proceed.
Senior White House officials are scheduled to be in the room throughout negotiations to merge competing Senate health care bills from the Finance and Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committees, with the expectation that they will make key decisions to mediate disagreements. In advance of the floor action to follow, Obama and top administration officials have been lobbying Senate Democrats to secure support for a final package.
“The White House presence in the merger will be huge, and it has to be,” a senior Democratic Senate aide said Monday. “President Obama will have to weigh in on the most difficult issues.”...
Democratic sources say Obama is going to have to make the final call on the controversial issues, including whether to push for the public insurance option.
From that, Greg concludes "Senate Dems are in effect saying to Obama: 'Tell us what to do. It’s your call' Which, of course, it is, though it’s also Harry’s call, and depending on the outcome, he’ll get a fair amount of credit — or blame."
No one wants to be responsible for killing the public option. It's still polling remarkably well, and, as Markos points out, voters are fine with it being a Dem-only bill, if it has to be.
Only 39 percent of Americans care much about "bipartisanship". And it's worse than that, because Republicans don't really care about bipartisanship, but about killing the public option. In fact, this question tracks the first one very closely. In other words, if you want a public option, you don't give a damn about bipartisanship. If you don't want it, you'd obviously rather see a bill that doesn't include it. Only four percent of Democrats defect on this question (2 points go to "no option", the other two to "undecided"), while 2 percent of Republicans who support the public option defect. They also don't care much about bipartisanship.
Even among those vaunted Independents, more would rather see substantive reform in the form of the public option than care if there's a Republican name attached to the bill.
In this round, Harry Reid is taking the position of the public option defender, reiterating last week that he's going to work for it. The White House is only repeating the line that they want a bill that “ensures choice and competition.” There also might be a message from the White House in the players that it's sending to the negotiations (from the Roll Call story):
White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Nancy Ann DeParle, Obama’s chief health care adviser, are expected to be at the table throughout the talks. White House Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag also is set to play a role, primarily on issues where health care and the federal budget intersect.
Emanuel has proven himself to be pretty much in the "pass anything and call it reform" camp, famously attacking progressive groups for pressuring Dems. Peter Orszag recently said that the public option isn't essential for the administration, and triggers or co-ops would work fine.
I think Greg is right on this one--Congressional Dems don't want to be alone in taking the fall if the public option fails or if it's fatally weakened by appearing as a co-op or Snowe trigger. We're at at point where it's poised to succeed. That it is essential to reform has finally been established, and now the fight is going to be over the form it takes. I think Senate Dems are looking for Obama to put some real skin in the game in determing just what the public option is going to become.