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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, seeking to console liberal activists who were disappointed by the final version of the national health care law, assured them that there would eventually be a public option. "We're going to have a public option," Reid said. "The only question is when." Reid's general comments reflected the same overall message to progressives that President Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi delivered earlier today. It essentially boils down to: We've done a lot of stuff, but we still have a lot of unfinished business, so campaign for us again.

Nothing more so far.

WASHINGTON - At a time when both political parties are worrying about the federal deficit, an unexpected and unorthodox proposal is coming back from the shadows of last year's health-care debate the "public option." The idea of creating a major government health insurance program was roundly rejected last year, but the 128 House Democrats pushing to reconsider the idea are now advancing the argument that it would help hold down federal spending. Their bill, which faces long odds, would allow Americans who do not get insurance at work to choose a government plan for their health coverage starting in 2014....

The reasons to defund and repeal Obamacare continuing to pile up as more and more facts are revealed by those willing to spend the time necessary to dig through the over 2000 page law. Now we learn that Obama lied to America about the Public Option (government-run health Insurance companies) being dropped from ObamaCare. It was NOT dropped. It is STILL in the law -- only hidden. Look for yourself. Look in Section 1334, pages 97-100, of the new health care law. If you feel as if you have been screwed –that’s because you have! Do yourself a favor and...

Henry Blodget | Mar. 29, 2010, 6:42 AM The White House has rushed to try to stop a wave of companies announcing that ObamaCare will cause their healthcare insurance costs to rise, causing them to cut benefits or fire people. At the end of last week, Secretary Gary Locke hit the WH blog to say, in effect, that these companies didn't know what they were talking about (which seems unlikely). Later, on CNBC, he suggested that they were acting unpatriotically. And now Henry Waxman is calling Congressional hearings to beat the companies up on live TV. For what it's worth,...

We have previously reported on how Obamacare as signed into law yesterday is simply a stalking horse which, if not repealed, will eventually morph into a complete government healthcare takeover. Yet it seems some Democrats are wanting to move faster than even I had predicted...

Buyer’s Remorse, Already? Democrats Fret Over Job-Killing ObamaCare Tax Hikes, Regulations As Nation’s Employers Prepare to Take a Hit, New Nat’l Survey Shows Most Americans Want Republicans to “Keep Fighting” Gov’t Takeover of Health Care Washington, Mar 25 - Democratic governors experiencing the first pangs of buyer’s remorse. A major Midwest manufacturer – and President Obama’s economic bellwether – projecting crushing first quarter losses. Small businesses grappling with the prospect of closing their doors. The first new piece of red tape. A phony abortion executive order signed behind closed doors. A growing grassroots revolt in the states. So goes the...

Just announced on Fox. One of the first "benefits" of Obamacare is news that companies with large populations of retirees that now have health insurance through their former employees will, instead, be dumped and forced onto Medicaid and Medicare. The resulting fines for the companies will be far less than continuing to pay for retirees' medical care. It's all allegedly legal under ObamaCare.

Public option supporters could offer a second reconciliation bill to establish the program, a top Democrat said Wednesday. Supporters of creating a government-run public option health insurance program are considering moving the proposal after healthcare reform is finished via another budget reconciliation bill that would require just a simple majority to pass, said Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Tom Harkin (D-Iowa).

The latest: UPDATE: Some Twitterers are stating that this is a “shell bill” that will provide a base for actual language later. Rep. Paul Ryan alluded to this move last week. * * * * The Hill is reporting tonight that the Democrats have published a copy of the bill that they plan to use to update the original Senate healthcare socialization bill that Pelosi plans to bring to the floor this week. And it appears they’ve decided to go all-in on this one. Included in the bill appears to be the “public option” that was removed from the Senate...

To provide for reconciliation pursuant to section 202 of the concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2010. 2300+ pages and includes student loans. Happy reading...

All United States citizens may be required to carry a biometric I.D. card! That's not Orwell's Big Brother speaking. Rather Democrat Chuck Schumer (D- New York), and Republican Lindsay Graham (R- South Carolina) have devised new legislation to mandate that every worker carry a government I.D. card to prove his citizenship. The card must be carried every day and may be checked by employers and any governmental authority upon request. All U.S. citizens would be required to carry an ID cards according to this plan. It's meant to keep companies from hiring illegal immigrants. No matter where you apply for...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Friday that the public health insurance option will not be included in a package of fixes to healthcare reform legislation. Pelosi's comments throw a wrench into liberal efforts to reintroduce it to the bill. She shut the door on a possible pathway opened by Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who said earlier on Friday that he would "aggressively" push senators to vote for the plan if the House included it in the fixes. "We had it, we wanted it ... it's not in the reconciliation," Pelosi said at her weekly press briefing. "It...

Senator Lindsey Graham, ever the faithful follower of uber-RINO John McCain, scored three RINO initiatives in just one week. Reminiscent of the "the band's getting back together" scenes from the movie "Blues Brothers", Graham and McCain reached back to the good old days of bipartisan shafting of conservative judicial nominees and offered the Democrats another "Gang of Fourteen"--this time to shaft the public with a bipartisan Obamacare bill. The offer must have been tempting to the Democrats who remember how "bipartisan leadership" from Graham and McCain spiked conservative guns when the Republicans were in the majority in the Senate. But...

Health Reform: The white coats showed up again at the White House, helping the administration ram health care reform down our throats. Can you have a bipartisan bill without a bipartisan vote?It didn't work the first time, when the White House last year assembled enough sympathetic medical professionals to stage a photo-op in the Rose Garden trying to persuade us that, as the commercial goes, three of four doctors really, really support the administration's attempt to nationalize health care. Rather than a grass-roots uprising of physicians, last year's event was a classic case of astroturfing. Attendance was by invitation only,...

The lesson here is this; Big government solutions to any problems end up turning into giant steaming piles of fail. It is universal. The left says that lack of coverage kills over 40,000 a year. Is it safe to assume that they would feel more comfortable if the government killed even more? This really goes back to the fact that socialist “solutions” do not take the needs of the individual into account. Socialism deals with groups. So, if thousands of individuals have to die, or suffer needlessly for the good of the group, so be it. In any socialist system,...

YouTube video. ……And Speaker Pelosi, I have a bridge in Broklyn to sell to you! HA!

When the dust settled on Scott Brown's victory in Massachusets, and all those compromises with catchy nicknames were officially scuttled, a handful of Senate Democrats decided they really would like the public option after all. And so they got down to brass tacks. Having been defeated by the need for 60 votes, to overcome that frustrating filibuster in the Senate's parliamentary procedure, they decided to pursue a different, even more obscure parliamentary procedure--a measure for approving the budget, ironically called "reconciliation"--that would require only 50 votes. Four senators, including Kirsten Gillibrand, signed a letter urging Harry Reid to pursue reconciliation....

White House on public option: 'That's up to Leader Reid' By Eric Zimmermann - 02/22/10 01:28 PM ET The White House says it's up to Harry Reid whether the Senate votes on the public option. Twenty senators have signed a letter asking for a vote on the public option through reconciliation, which would allow Democrats to pass legislation with just 51 votes. White House press secretary Robert Gates said today that the White House will leave that up to the Senate Majority Leader. "I think they've asked for a vote on the floor of the Senate, and that's certainly up...

[snip] Liberals are making a bid to restore the "public option," ObamaCare's most controversial and destructive inspiration. Some 18 Senators as we went to press—led by Colorado's Michael Bennet and growing to include New York's Chuck Schumer on Thursday—have endorsed slipping this government-run insurance entitlement in the reconciliation process that would let Democrats abuse Senate rules to hustle ObamaCare into law with 50 votes. Vehemence among House progressives is also at a fever pitch, though it always is. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius joined the mob, telling MSNBC's Rachel Maddow that if the public option is "part of...