[ding_dong_daddy_from_dumas]

He knows he has the votes in the House, and he knows he can squeak it through the Senate so long as the public option is off the table. But he also knows that once the sanitized version passes the Senate, he no longer needs to overcome a filibuster, which means that the reconciled bill between the House and Senate bills (which will likely end up with something that resembles the House version and will certainly contain a public option) will only need a simple majority in the Senate.

1) I thought they were already planning to bypass the 60 vote rule via "reconciliation." Maybe they don't even have 50 senate votes with the "public option?" If that were true, then the Dem plan would be to work on getting 50 votes while the bill was in conference, with the US public unaware that they sneaked the public option back in.

2) When Kent Conrad said "Look, the fact of the matter is there are not the votes in the U.S. Senate for the public option. There never have been. So to continue to chase that rabbit, I think, is just a wasted effort," was that another fake to make obamacare opponents overconfident?

3) Is there anything the senate can do to prevent a bill it passes from becoming the house bill in the senate/house conference? If not, the benefits of having 2 houses of congress seem dubious.

[null and void]

1) I thought they were already planning to bypass the 60 vote rule via "reconciliation." Maybe they don't even have 50 senate votes with the "public option?" If that were true, then the Dem plan would be to work on getting 50 votes while the bill was in conference, with the US public unaware that they sneaked the public option back in.

I read yesterday that they are looking at changing the rulz to allow passage on a simple majority vote.

Then 51 votes would suffice.

[CA Conservative]

1) I thought they were already planning to bypass the 60 vote rule via "reconciliation." Maybe they don't even have 50 senate votes with the "public option?" If that were true, then the Dem plan would be to work on getting 50 votes while the bill was in conference, with the US public unaware that they sneaked the public option back in.

It turns out there is a problem with that. If they try to pass it under the "reconciliation" rule, meaning they only need 51 votes, then the Senate parlimentarian must strip out anything that does not directly impact the budget. So anything dealing with a public option, any policy items, any new rules or regulations that don't deal with direct government expenditures must be stripped out of the bill. The senators don't get any say concerning what parts are removed and what parts remain, and it has to be an up or down vote - no amendments.