The NY Times will be reporting on page A1 that Democrats are considering passing a health reform bill whether Republicans support it or not.

Whether this was some kind of long planned strategy or just an ad-hoc response to Republican moves (an explanation I would favour) the article makes clear that this is a response to a couple recent Republican moves:

  • Grassley.  Sen. Grassley indicated that he would not vote for a bill that contained all his desired compromises unless it could get substantial Republican support.  He also embraced the "death panels" nonsense instead of refuting it.  This was key to Democrats coming to see him as not negotiating in good faith.
  • Opposition to co-ops.  As many here expected, even ditching the public option and making co-ops the centrepiece of the bill would not suffice, as Republicans indicated they would still view this as "government healthcare", "socialized health care" and so forth.

This is encouraging in particular:


One senior administration official said the sense within the White House was that Republicans, in an effort to undermine President Obama and Congressional Democrats, had made a political calculation to oppose any health care legislation.