"Vote to pass" or "Vote to end debate on"?

How many of them will vote against cloture on a conference committee report containing a public option?

There is -- or ought to be -- a qualitative difference, a difference in nature between voting against your party on a cloture vote and voting against your party on a bill.

If there are 13 of them it doesn't matter. We need at least 50 Senators (with Joe Biden breaking the tie) to pass a bill in budget reconciliation.

I don't want to kill the suspense of the 13 "waverers". But (SPOILER ALERT) check out each one's campaign contributors at opensecrets.org.

This is not a good sign. 13 is a big number. If Reid plays hard ball, more will bolt away from Public Option as opposed to other way around.

Hey, Rahmbo how's that kissing up to Liebertwit working out now? Watch Rahmbo and BamBam still go out and campaign for Liebertwit next year.

As far as Landrieu, she just needs a little hardball politics from Reid which will never come because apparently Reid thinks he was only supposed to do that when he was a boxer 50 yrs ago.

How can these spineless, corporate schills even claim to be in the same party as Ted Kennedy?

Why did these people run for government if they were not going to improve Americans lives?
Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) hasn't said much about the public option lately. Several months ago he insisted he was "agnostic" about it. But progressives are concerned that he'll be influenced by his wife, who sits on the board of Wellpoint--one of the country's largest insurance companies.

Bayh is never going to vote for universal health he's in bed with big insurance (his wife). If i were Obama i'll call all dems in and tell them if they don't vote for this bill i will hand pick a dem to run against you and i will come to your state and campaign for him to replace you. So vote for it or go back to your state and start looking for a job, with health care.

"(I-CT)", note the "I," is not a democrat.

Vote! Go for it. Vote the public option in. Hell, vote for single payer. Just do IT!

You forgot the Invertebrate Bingaman.

There are two procedures by which to get a simple majority vote on a bill in the Senate, neither one is likely to end up with a public option included in a bill for initial consideration. It is therefore very interesting that, of the two procedures available, the Senate seems determined to choose the more extraordinary of the two--the one most likely to prevent the public option from ever being included a bill for final consideration: Budget Reconciliation procedures. Sadly, liberal grassroots networks like this one are actively complicit in this effort.

Normally, the Senate would initially consider and pass by a simple majority a bill containing whatever provisions are acceptable to avoid a filibuster--in this case, a bill without a public option. The House would consider and pass its version of a bill, presumably including a public option. House and Senate negotiators would then resolve the differences between the two versions of the bill and, presumably, include the public plan in a final version to be voted on by simple majorities of both chambers--there being no provision for filibustering or amending bills reported out of conference.

This is the most common practice, routinely employed for any bill of a controversial nature. Though passing a bill is never easy, it is by far the easier of the two procedures.

On the other hand, Budget Reconciliation procedures will essentially require demonstrating a budget savings for every component of the bill within a five-year time-frame, rather than the ten-year scope of the current bill. Provisions of the bill that cant meet those standards would have to be pared from the bill. That five-year requirement alone would significantly reduce the bill's scope, since estimated savings are unlikely to be realized in such a shortened time-frame. Worse still, there is simply no way to demonstrate a budget savings for, for instance, the provision making Medicaid available to everyone at the threshold of 150% of poverty. And once that thread is pulled the whole thing begins to unravel.

The result is almost certain to be splitting the bill into several smaller bills of limited component parts, passing first the least controversial provisions (containing those most profitable to industry and what the the industry has already agreed to), with the pledge to continue working on the more difficult ones later.

So, either way, the Senate won't initially pass a bill containing a public option. But if Budget Reconciliation procedures are used, the bill will only include candy for the industry with none of the constraints.

This will present an interesting dilemma for the House because, in order to go to a conference with the Senate, it must first reject the Senate bill and insist on the provisions of its bill. At that point, the entire debate dynamic will change. Republicans and Blue Dogs will finally have something to be For and will demand passage of the Senate bill as a "compromise". No one has to say "no" to anything, the more difficult provisions will simply require more time to resolve. "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good." etc.

Far be it from me to impugn the motives of our esteemed political class but if one sees a long line of track, it's probably a railroad. For my money, the best way for liberals to keep from being rolled is for them to tell their Senators to use the regular order and pass the worst bill imaginable, then apply heavy pressure to clean it up in conference.