A new measure on the public option will be unveiled next week, which Senate Democratic leaders hope will break the logjam on healthcare reform. Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), who has been tapped by Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to come up with a Plan B approach to the public option controversy that has divided Democrats, has been working closely with liberal and conservative Democrats, as well as Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine). In an interview, Carper acknowledged that Reid's "opt out" public option bill does not have 60 votes necessary for passage, even though it cleared a procedural hurdle last month.
Simply put, Carper's acknowledgment means that Reid's bill cannot pass the Senate in its current incarnation. The Democrats' hope, it appears, is that a "trigger" public option would capture Snowe's vote even as it loses Lieberman's. But there are several other senators to consider, too: Nebraska's Ben Nelson, Louisiana's Mary Landrieu, and Arkansas's Blanche Lincoln. They could find other reasons to oppose the bill. In a recent op-ed, for example, Nelson wrote that "I would vote against a cloture motion - needing 60 votes - to move to approve the Reid bill today for a number of reasons, and I will do so if that's what emerges from the upcoming debate. I also will vote no on a cloture motion - also needing 60 votes - to move to an up-or-down vote on a final House-Senate compromise health care bill if serious problems remain." So far as I know, Nelson hasn't given any indication that the "serious problems" have disappeared. All of which is to say: Even if Reid surmounts the public option hurdle, he still has to jump over plenty more. Medicare cuts, for example.