House Speaker Lacks Democrat Votes for ‘Public Option’

by Warner Todd Huston | October 23, 2009 2:13 pm

Despite assurances to the contrary, Politico.com is reporting[1] that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D, Calif.) does not have the votes to include the so-called public option in the House version of Obamacare making it more likely that a “trigger” will be included instead.

Politico also reports that Obama himself announced support for the trigger option.

Obama told Senate Democratic leadership at the White House Thursday evening that his preference is for the trigger championed by Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) — a plan that would allow a public plan to kick in if private insurers don’t expand coverage fast enough, a top administration official told POLITICO. It’s also sign Obama is interested in maintaining a sense of bipartisanship around the health reform plan.

Regardless of the Politco report, however, Speaker Pelosi came out today in a press conference and insisted that the public option will, indeed, be in the bill.

Whatever the final outcome will be, however, this shows that Speaker Pelosi is having trouble manhandling her caucus. This also means that voters still have a chance to affect this vote by calling their representatives and urging them to oppose the public option.