You know, I find the following exchange between Ed Schultz and Tom Harkin to be a bit troubling:
SCHULTZ: But why do I sense a “yes” out of you? If it were to come to the floor, you would vote yes for the public option, would you not?
HARKIN: Ed, I’ll tell you this straightforward. Not if it meant that it would sink the whole health care reform bill.
There’s a lot of other stuff in there I care very deeply about — getting rid of all of these pre-existing conditions, insurance rescinding these things, covering 30 million people, giving tax credits to low income so they can buy insurance, getting more competition out there. These are very important things to have for our country, and so I have to weigh all of that.
And if we have a bill sent to us from the House, a reconciliation bill that does not have the public option in there, then if we were to do that, if we were to add it here, that would sink the whole bill. And I don’t want to sink this bill. I want to get this bill passed. I want it on Obama’s desk and have him sign it.
SCHULTZ: Yes. We all do, Senator. But if it were just a single issue and a single reconciliation attempt at a public option, you would vote for that, wouldn’t you?
HARKIN: Ed, not if it doomed the entire bill.
First of all, this presumes that the reconciliation bill would be passed first in the House, but that doesn’t necessarily have to be the case. I believe the Senate could act first. But, secondly, the House has already passed a bill with a public option. If they pass the current Senate bill which doesn’t have a public option, and then they are presented with a reconciliation bill (or an amendment to the bill they passed in the House), they shouldn’t have a big problem with it.
I guess what I’m asking Harkin is what the source of the doom would be in this scenario. I agree that we shouldn’t take an all or nothing approach and that we don’t want to set up a process that fails. But he shouldn’t blame the House for what appears to be a problem in the Senate.
