Public Option Would Not Pass Senate

Worth Clicking: Blasts from the past wound Romney

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July 29, 2009

Public Option Would Not Pass Senate

If President Obama is backing away from a public option in his health care reform proposal, it's because he prefers to move the bill through the Senate's normal channels and not through the budget reconciliation process which would require only 51 votes.

In an interview on CNBC, Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) said a Finance Committee proposal containing a health care cooperative insurance plan -- and not a government sponsored plan -- is the only proposal likely to get 60 votes in the Senate to prevent a filibuster.

Said Conrad: "There's been no final resolution, but I think there's a good chance the cooperative plan will be adopted, at least at the committee level. The notion of a cooperative plan is that it's membership-controlled, membership-run -- not government-run, government-controlled."

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Taegan D. Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites.

Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country, including the Washington Post, USA Today, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer and Christian Science Monitor.

Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

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July 29, 2009