Public Option Plan Rehashed

The latest polls show that Americans are less and less satisfied with the health care reform bill. The fact is President Obama promised transparency when it comes to health care reform. What happened instead are meetings behind closed doors, along with wrangling and back door deals that would get the 60 votes from the Senate. Republicans weren’t included and reacted by filibustering the bill.

Now the fight over health care reform has picked up again. Four Democratic senators and 119 House Democrats asked Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to hold a vote through the budget reconciliation process regarding the public option plan. Under this vote, only 51 votes would be necessary to pass the measure.

This push to get a public option plan in is the latest move by Senate Democrats to get some sort of health care reform passed. This despite the fact that even when the Senate had the 60-member majority, leaving a public option plan in the bill still caused major strife. Liberal Democrats are using any means possible to push their agenda. House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi is blaming Republicans for a lack of bipartisanship and plans to bypass them if they do not cooperate.

On the other side of the table, Republicans are still leaning strongly to meeting with President Obama on February 25th, despite seeing the summit as a political farce. It’s expected that President Obama will continue to present the current bills instead of starting fresh, as Republicans propose.