The Week That Was: What Happened In Health Care This Week, And What To Look Forward To

It's been a busy week by the standards of the United States Senate, but it's also been fairly confusing. With the Senate's long, lumbering push for reform now in its final stages, we've seen debate, votes, and back room wheeling and dealing on contentious issues like the public option and abortion. So what does all of it mean.

To break it down into simpler terms, the crucial developments--the ones that will determine whether this bill passes or fails--have yet to come. In the mean time, there are tea leaves, and technical developments, but that's about it. If the Senate health care bill is in a slow motion run to the finish line, we'll know next week whether it breaks through the ribbon, or staggers and falls to the ground.

In the past week, members have filed (i.e. announced their intent to introduce) scores of amendments. A small handful have actually received votes, and more will come to the floor this weekend. But none, so far, have been particularly politically weighty. In other words, the amendments that will make or break this bill, are still being hashed out.

Currently, conservative Democrats are crafting a public option amendment that would be introduced if leadership can't secure 60 votes for the public option in the bill right now. And it seems they can't.

If it becomes necessary, leadership will likely bundle a compromise on the public option with several other amendment in a so-called "manager's amendment." That will need 60 to pass, and it will be a must-watch vote.

Separately, Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) will almost certainly receive a stand-alone vote on an abortion amendment. He says his plan is modeled on the so-called Stupak language in the House health care bill, which prevents people who, under the bill, will be receiving insurance subsidies from the government from buying insurance that covers abortion. Such an amendment likely doesn't have 60 votes in the Senate, but Nelson's threatening to filibuster if he doesn't get his way.

Democrats are scrambling to figure out how to end that stand-off. "At the end of the day we need Senator Nelson's vote," Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) told reporters today. "We don't have the promise of a vote on the Republican side."

That amendment, too, will be a must-watch. Either the vast majority of Democrats, or Nelson himself, will have to blink, or else Democratic leaders will find it extremely difficult to pass a bill.

Despite all of the hurdles, though, Democrats remain hopeful. Even public option opponent Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) today spoke of the future "when health reform becomes law." Not if.