Dems Prepared To Stuff Health Care Down Our Throats

They've got 60; they're now ready to try to use it, according to Politico and Mercury News, among others.

Of course, they blame this on the Republicans, because in the Democrats world, only reform that involves government expansion is true reform, and thus Republicans, who are holding out to only support something they believe in, don't support reform.

It is still unlikely that they will be able to get a public option out of the Senate, as it no longer has popular support (44 for, 47 against, according to the new CBS News poll that continues to show a steady downward trend for the idea) and moderate-to-conservative Dems (Landreiu, Nelson, Warner, Begich, Lincoln, Bayh, etc.) probably wouldn't be able to bring themselves to support it.

The scariest possibility is that the Dems may attempt to use Budget Reconciliation rules, which would only require 50 votes and would allow them to ignore up to 10 moderates, even though those rules are meant only for direct budget-related measures (Robert Byrd, a diehard liberal, has said he would oppose this bill, if they attempted to pass it in this fashion, out of precedent). It would be a decleration of war on Republicans and could be very costly in 2010, but might get the job done. As Republican Punk has said in the past, once a public option is in, there is no getting rid of it. It is an entitlement and people don't vote away entitlements (Welfare being the one exception, and that required a perfect storm even though it only affected a small minority of the population).

We'll keep you updated as news leaks on what a Republican-less reform package out of the Senate would look like.