This morning's NYTimes breaks the news that we already suspected: Harry Reid will let President Snowe be the decider on healthcare reform.
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.
Not so fast, though, says Reid spokesman Rodell Mollinaue, when pressed by Greg Sargent:
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 tomorrow. 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.
Yes, it would be wildly speculative, and deciding in advance that the final version won't have the public option would prejudice Senators against Rockefeller's and Schumer's amendments, which will be voted on tomorrow. Of course, they've already accomplished that because the story already ran. And now they can pretend that they never floated it.
Meanwhile, when asked for confirmation of the initial New York Times story by BarbinMD, Sen. Reid's Deputy Director of New Media, Erin Skinner Cochran, told us that Sen. Rockefeller's statement from last week that "I think we have a good shot of getting it out of the Finance Committee," does not reflect "reality."
Yep, I recognize that he said that, but I think most folks sitting here observing this process would tell you that that quote doesn’t match the reality of what the Finance Committee will support in the end.
So that being said, our best bet is to get through the Finance mark-up this week and have a PO amendment added while in conference committee and get it through that way.
Senator Rockefeller declined to respond to the stories at this time. Sen. Schumer is unavailable for a response until later today. Meanwhile, I think the big question is whether it's a foregone conclusion on the part of Senator Reid that President Snowe gets to decide whether or not we have a public option, at least on the Senate side.
Comments are closed on this story.