Since the antiabortion folks won't vote for the bill, the Speaker has to hit people who voted no because of the public option the first time.  That is as simple as I can make it for you.

And about the PO: the argument isn't that it could die in the House, the argument is that they want to stiff-arm as many amendments from Republicans as possible, and this impedes the process. In which case I say: tough shit. I'm not even a strong supporter of the public option, but I'd rather have it than not, and I especially want to see who is a coward and who is not.

Durbin can bite me, as Steve M. lays out:

Isn't This Exactly What Happened in the House? That is: the progressives are told that they need to hold all amendments in order to push through a clean bill with no Republican poison pills, and at the last minute some asshole "centrist" or Republican tool forces the leadership to accept a far right poison pill. That was essentially what happened to Single Payer in the House, wasn't it? The progressives were promised a vote on the amendement, held off to make the process smooth for the leadership, and then Stupak and his team played hardball and forced their amendment through and poisoned the house bill. I'm pro the passing of any bill at this point and I don't want to see HCR go down in flames over the Public Option. I think we'd be better off passing HCR now any way we can and coming back and forcing through the Public Option we really want at a later date, as a stand alone bill. It doesn't have to be part of an omnibus bill now. But even so I think the Senate and the House leadership have to realize that the utter incompetence during the earlier negotiations doesn't give them a whole lot of credibility now. Does anyone believe that even if 40 Senators sit down and shut up and let the grown ups run the Reconciliation proceedings that Reid et al won't fuck it up? Because on the history, I'm not a believer.

Like Steve, I don't buy it.

I'd really prefer to open up Medicare, with reimbursement rates set at +5% for those under 65, and premiums set at cost. It's the simplest option and the easiest to sell.

Any public option they give us now is going to be substantially weaker than that. Once we create a new bureaucracy (instead of adding to Medicare), it will never go away... and the system will have one more needless complication thrown in.

Medicare for anyone.  Simple concept.  Different bill.

The House can include the public option in its reconciliation package if it's got the votes to do that.  The idea then is that the Senate would pass the reconciliation package straight up with no amendments.  There are a lot of questions as to whether the House will do this, given the votes they have and given the Stupak amendment dustup again - which I am beginning to see a a tactical move to prevent the House from having a roll call vote on the public option (which would probably pass).

On the Senate side, you have a letter circulating asking for an up-or-down vote on the public option.  Presumably this is regardless of the method which it comes to the floor.  Because of the filibuster, the only way it can come to the floor is under reconciliation rules.  But if the Senate succeeds in amending the reconciliation + Senate bill, it will have to go back to the House for concurrence or hash it out in a joint committee (also confusingly called reconciliation).  I think that is the risk Harkin is talking about.

Then you might have the situation in which 51+ Senators signed Bennet's letter but procedurally there was not a good way to convert that support of the public option into law in the current Senate + reconciliation sidecar strategy.  I'm not sure what the politics of that would be -- besides very interesting.

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