Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi stand behind public option

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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) is shown during a Clean Energy Jobs tour at UNLV Tuesday, August 11, 2009. The tour was part of the national Clean Energy Summit 2.0.

WASHINGTON -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi emerged from their meeting with the president at the White House this afternoon committed to two seemingly impossible goals in the health care debate: the public option and a bipartisan bill.

Even as Democrats returned from a bruising August and a top House negotiator for the conservative wing of their party said today he would no longer support a public option, the two maintained it remains a viable goal for the bill.

"I believe a public option will be essential to our passage of a bill in the House of Representatives,” Pelosi said.

Reid said he restated his preference for the option, saying he believes the majority in the Senate and House believes in it. He said he had not seen the draft Senate bill that was being circulated this weekend by the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, which reportedly excludes the public option that is unlikely to win support in the Senate.

“We’re going to do our very best to have a public option,” Reid said.

The two met on the eve of President Barack Obama’s planned address Wednesday to a rare joint session of Congress.

The public option component would allow those without health care through their employers to buy it from the government. The public option is supported by slightly more than half of Nevadans, according to a recent poll. But in Washington it is opposed by conservative Democrats and most Republicans.

Standing outside the White House, in the cool greyness of September as fall approaches, Reid said Democrats are “re-energized and ready to do health care reform,” and looking forward to Obama’s speech, which he said would outline the bill the president wants.

“I have every belief that when he finishes this speech tomorrow, the American people will be able to put aside some of the ridiculous falsehoods that have been permeating these past few weeks,” Reid said.

Reid noted that Democrats still seek a bipartisan bill with Republicans, which would require 60 votes Reid does not yet have in the Senate for the bill. But Reid also hinted that he could use the parliamentary procedure known as reconciliation to pass the bill with just a simple majority.

“We’re still approaching this in the form of bipartisanship,” Reid said. “We don’t want to do reconciliation unless we have no alternative.”

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