In definitive terms, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters at the Capitol that despite a late revival of support for creating a government-run insurance program as part of the health care overhaul, it just wasn't going to happen.
"We're talking about something that's not going to be part of the legislation," Pelosi said.
The public option has had a roller coaster ride in the health care debate, and although it has been pronounced dead several times before, Pelosi's declaration carried a finality that previous assertions had not. As she made plain to reporters, the speaker has been a staunch backer of the proposal, and at one point last year she even vowed that the House would not pass a health care bill that lacked a public option.
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The public option is "not going to be a part of the legislation" on health care reform even though "we wanted it," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Friday.
In the end, the House bill did include the public option, but centrist Democrats forced it out of the Senate bill, which needed a supermajority of 60 votes to pass. With lawmakers now moving to approve final changes to the health care legislation with a simple Senate majority of 51 votes, liberals mounted another push to include the public option in those revisions, to be passed through the budget reconciliation process.
In the last few weeks, 41 Senate Democrats signed on to a petition calling for a reconciliation vote on the public option, breathing new life into the proposal.
But Pelosi said that ultimately the support wasn't there to return the most politically explosive provision to a bill that is proving difficult enough to pass as it is. "We had it. We wanted it. It's not in reconciliation," she said.
The speaker used her news conference to sound an upbeat note after a week in which her coalition of House health care supporters seemed on the verge of collapsing. Pelosi praised President Barack Obama's decision to delay his trip to Asia by three days to round up health care votes, although she brushed off a March 18 deadline the White House had set for the House to approve the final bill.
"We'll take whatever time is required for us to pass the legislation," she said.
Lawmakers hope to have cost estimates for the revised legislation in coming days and have scheduled hearings to begin Monday. Pelosi said it would take at least a week to vote on the bill, from the time the estimates arrive from the Congressional Budget Office.
In recent days, liberal and conservative members of the Democratic caucus have threatened to vote against the bill for a variety of reasons, including abortion and immigration language, cost concerns and a lack of trust that the Senate will actually enact promised changes to the bill. Pelosi tried to play down the tensions, voicing confidence that the votes will ultimately be there.
"It will take a little faith, but what we do always does," the speaker said.
