Senate Has Votes For Reconciliation

For the last few weeks, we have heard a lot about the use of the reconciliation process to pass health care reform. The idea is that the Senate bill would be passed and sent to the president, and then the reconciliation process would be used to amend that bill and turn it into real reform. The beauty of the reconciliation process (used repeatedly by Republicans during the Bush administration) is that it cannot be filibustered and only requires 51 votes to pass a bill.

The web site Open Left has been tracking the senate votes, and they now report that 50 senators have said they would support using the reconciliation process to improve the Senate health care bill. With Vice-President Biden casting the 51st vote, that means Senate Democrats now have the needed votes to get this done.

The only question now is whether this reconciliation bill would include a public option. Not too long ago, I had thought the public option was dead. But it now looks like there is a chance it could actually be revived and approved as a part of the reconciliation bill. The public option doesn't have the support of 50 senators yet, but it gets closer with each passing day.

There are currently 37 senators who would support including the public option in a reconciliation bill. In addition, 4 senators say maybe, 12 have not declared a position on this and only 6 has said they are opposed. Only 13 senators are needed from the "maybe" and "not declared" groups to reach the magic number of 50. There is a chance that could be accomplished.

Here are how the Democratic Caucus senators stand right now on including the public option:

YES

Barbara Boxer, Diane Feinstein, Michael Bennet, Mark Udall, Chris Dodd, Ted Kaufman, Daniel Inouye, Roland Burris, Dick Durbin, John Kerry, Ben Cardin, Barbara Mikulski, Carl Levin, Debbie Stabenow, Al Franken, Amy Klobuchar, Jeanne Shaheen, Frank Lautenberg, Bob Menendez, Jeff Bingaman, Tom Udall, Kirsten Gillibrand, Chuck Schumer, Harry Reid, Sherrod Brown, Jeff Merkley, Ron Wyden, Bob Casey, Arlen Specter, Jack Reed, Sheldon Whitehouse, Tim Johnson, Patrick Leahy, Bernie Sanders, Maria Cantwell, Patty Murray, Russ Feingold.

MAYBE

Herb Kohl, Jon Tester, Claire McCaskill, Tom Harkin.

NOT DECLARED YET

Mark Begich, Mark Pryor, Tom Carper, Bill Nelson, Daniel Akaka, Max Baucus, Kay Hagan, Kent Conrad, Byron Dorgan, Mark Warner, Jim Webb, Robert Byrd.

NO

Blanche Lincoln, Joe Lieberman, Jay Rockefeller, Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu, Evan Bayh. (Is there any point in these six even calling themselves Democrats anymore?)

Now the House of Representatives needs to get busy and start a reconciliation bill (with a public option like they included in the first health care bill they passed). Speaker Pelosi and the Democrats got it done once. Now they need to do it one more time.

Is real health care reform still possible? We can only hope.