There are now five bills that have passed various committees and need to be reconciled in order to pass both Houses of Congress and receive a Presidential signature. Only one does not contain a public option. It seems to me that anyone who says the "public option is dead" can't do the math. The House Democrats, led by the Speaker, are demanding it. Many Senators are inclined to support it, except for the noisy few like Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman.
The latest tactic to derail this, revealed by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, is to demand a long debate. His arguments for a long debate would make sense if this were a new issue, or something that hadn't been discussed in public forums ad nauseum for months. Besides that, the real debate will be behind the scenes in the attempt to reconcile all the undotted "i"'s and uncrossed "t"'s of the five bills currently in circulation, and McConnell and everyone else knows this. With the White House bitch-slapping the insurance industry late last week, any attempt to drag their representatives along will probably be met with hostility.
Since I have to guess, not knowing exactly why the statement was formulated the way it was, the White House statement today that it "prefers" a public option without threatening a veto over it sounds kind of namby-pamby. Yet, when you consider all the veto threats of the Bush White House - threats seldom honored - combined with the desire by the Obama White House to get Congress to move on this issue, a veto threat at this point makes no sense. Passing a bill that is imperfect, even a bill with no public option, is far better than dragging the whole reform train to a halt. Should a bill pass without a public option (again, I doubt it, the math and the numbers are against it), it seems more than likely that after the '10 midterms, when the Democrats have solidified their control over both Houses (still running with my prediction they will kick some ass next year), they can revisit that issue on its own.
Yet, simply by stating a Presidential "preference", it seems to me that puts enormous pressure on wavering Democrats in both Houses to make sure he gets that preference. It makes the Ben Nelsons and the Max Baucus's look like they are being presumptuous, placing their own preferences over and against not just the President's, but the majority of the American people's as well.
I have said it before and I will say it again. I wouldn't want to play chess with Barack Obama. I believe that the obstructionists in Congress have no idea how bad he has consistently made them look.
My prediction - health care with a public option will pass, the President will sign it, and the world will not shift on its axis.
