Late last night, Republicans won two parliamentary points of order that resulted in a few lines being removed from the reconciliation bill. Since the Senate can now no longer pass a bill that is word-for-word identiacal to one that passed the House, it must go back to the House for a final vote. Who could [...]

It appears Harry Reid (D-NV) has promised Senate liberals a vote on a public option in the next few months. It sounds like this vague promise of “fixing it later” was more than enough to get Bernie Sanders (I-VT) to completely flip-flop on offering a public option amendment during reconciliation. From Huffington Post: In the [...]

Previously, I have explained how if just one single senator that supported the public option offered an amendment during reconciliation, it would force an up or down vote on the matter. This means it would only take 51 votes to include a public option, and, at the very least, we would finally get to see [...]

We recently learned that Harry Reid (D-NV) and Dick Durbin (D-IL) were actually whipping against the public option and trying to deny the American people a real up-or-down vote on the issue in the Senate. It is good to see that Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is willing to defy them and instead go with the will [...]

Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is saying that the Senate has a majority for a public option–in direct contradiction to claims by President Obama. From TPM: Sanders said he thinks Democrats have 50 votes in the Senate to pass a bill “certainly to include a public option.” It was a bit of good news for progressives, who [...]

We thought Bernie Sanders would be a Senator with more bite than bark on health care reform. Green Mountain Daily and FDL Action team up to challenge Bernie Sanders.

Looking through the manager’s amendment, one of the best pieces of pure good news is the extra money going to community health care centers and the National Health Service Corps fund. Community health care centers provide the vital service of getting individual cost effective primary care. If your goal is to increase access to “health [...]

Bernie Sanders is not buying the myth that reconciliation would not work for real health care reform. “If I had my druthers, I think reconciliation is an absolutely appropriate way to go,” he said. “I think what people who oppose that will tell you is that you can’t have the kind of comprehensive legislation that [...]

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) told The Hill that he would absolutely back using reconciliation to pass health care reform. And when asked whether he would support reconciliation in the event Lieberman and other Democrats blocked consideration of the bill, Sanders said: “Absolutely. Look, the trick here is to do the best that we can for [...]