State of Health Care Reform Negotiations

Josh Marshall reports on Talking Points Memo on the current status of negotiations on health care reform.

The White House still appears wedded to the belief that the Snowe/trigger path is the surest one to getting a bill to the president's desk (though perhaps there've been some small signs of loosening over the last 48 hours). And they're worried and/or skeptical that Reid's plan, while perhaps better legislation in the abstract, will crash and burn before final passage. Whether that analysis makes sense or not, it's the clearest explanation of all the facts. And a "senior administration official" told Cohn on Sunday that they'll be with Reid "100 percent behind whichever direction [he] decides to go."

Marshall references Jonathan Cohn's excellent piece in The New Republic.

On the contrary, it seems pretty clear (at least to me) that Obama really would prefer a strong public option--but that he, like his advisers, has serious concerns over whether such an option can pass. In other words, he wants a good public plan but he wants a bill even more--and he's not sure that the former is compatible with the latter. So he's being careful--more careful, in fact, than some of his Senate allies would like.

Stay tuned.

--Ballard Burgher