Back in the heat of the public option debate last fall, TWI created a scoreboard to track each senator’s position on a government insurance plan to compete with private insurers. Ultimately, Senate Democrats determined that they just couldn’t muster the necessary 60 votes for a bill with a public option, and so they passed legislation without one.<\/p>\n
But now, the public option is back, and so is our scoreboard<\/a>. This time, the debate centers on the possibility of passing a bill with a public option through budget reconciliation rules, which require only 50 votes for passage. The Senate Public Option Reconciliation Scoreboard<\/a> lists every senator’s stance on both the public option itself and the reconciliation route to passage. <\/span><\/p>\n Sure, the odds of a public option are still remote. But with a tremendous amount of uncertainty surrounding the health care debate in the House and Senate, the idea is gaining some ground.<\/p>\n