Public option vote postponed

The Senate Finance Committee won't be voting Friday after all on a proposal to create a government-run public option health insurance program.

Democratic Sens. Jay Rockefeller (W.Va.) and Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) planned to raise amendments on the issue, a top priority for liberals and probably the most controversial aspect of healthcare reform, first thing Friday morning, the senators said Thursday.

But it wasn't to be so. Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) opened up the proceedings on Friday -- the fourth day of the panel's ongoing mark up of healthcare reform legislation -- by saying the public option would have to wait until Tuesday.

"I want to take that up soon. It's a very important amendment," said Baucus. "We don't have time today to do that."

Even if Rockefeller and Schumer's gambit fails Tuesday, the public option issue will be far from dead in the Senate.

The Finance Committee's legislation will have to be combined with a bill already approved by the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee that includes a public option. And if the public option doesn't survive the process of melding the two committees' bills, liberals are certain to raise the issue on the Senate floor. Beyond that, the House is likely to pass a healthcare bill with some form of public option.

Meanwhile, not only does the Finance Committee have to deal with the volatile public option issue, which will divide Democrats on the panel and almost definitely not pass, but senators also have to vote on a proposed compromise.

Baucus's draft of the bill includes a proposal conceived by Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) to create not-for-profit healthcare cooperatives as an alternative to health insurance -- and as a political alternative to the public option, which conservatives view as a stalking horse for a government takeover of the healthcare system.

The supposed co-op compromise did little to assuage Republicans, however, and failed to win over liberal Democrats. Senators from both parties have numerous amendments on the table that would pick apart Conrad's co-ops.