Senate panel rejects public option twice

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By Jennifer Haberkorn

In a long-awaited fight that pitted Democrats against one another, liberal lawmakers failed twice Tuesday to insert a government-run health insurance program into the emerging Senate health care reform bill but vowed that the battle for a public option is far from over.

Republicans immediately hailed the Senate Finance Committee showdown votes as proof that the public option was dead. But the White House said the panel's slow slog to produce a bill was building momentum for reform on Capitol Hill, with four other House and Senate committees already having approved versions of the bill.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said, just a few weeks earlier, "We didn't have a committee that was meeting, we didn't have amendments that were being debated, we didn't have votes taking place.

"Obviously, all of that happening with the last committee of jurisdiction means we're making progress on health care," he added.

Chairman Max Baucus of Montana and fellow Democratic Sens. Kent Conrad of North Dakota, Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, Thomas R. Carper of Delaware and Bill Nelson of Florida joined committee Republicans in a 15-8 vote to defeat an amendment by Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV, West Virginia Democrat, for an expansive public option plan.

A second try on a more limited amendment, offered by Sen. Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, failed by a closer margin of 13-10, with Mr. Baucus, Mr. Conrad and Mrs. Lincoln again in opposition.

The votes were a tactical victory for Mr. Baucus, who has struggled to craft a bill that could be voted out of his committee and have a chance of passing the full Senate. He has long said that the public option doesn't have the 60 votes required to defeat a minority filibuster in the Senate.

"I fear that if this provision is in the bill, if it comes out of this committee, it will jeopardize real meaningful health care reform," he said.

Republican leaders said the vote proved that deep cracks are emerging among Democrats on the entire push for health care reform, and warned against efforts by the majority to ram a plan through Congress.