Research

The American people are tuning in to see which Senate Democrat will be called the next “only holdout” in the fight over the Obama-Reid government-run health care experiment. At the beginning of the week, the media said “Sen. Joe Lieberman holds the 60^th vote...” Yet after Harry Reid dropped the public option and Medicare buy-in to secure his vote, the media moved on, declaring that “[Sen. Ben] Nelson is the lone holdout…” As of now, Sen. Nelson says he won’t vote for cloture because of concerns related to abortion and other issues. And because of this, NARAL created an emergency petition to try to get Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) to be the 60^th vote.

Despite this array of candidates for the next one-and-only holdout, there are several others who no one has seemed to notice haven’t come forward to support Reid’s bill:

• Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) remains “undecided” and voted with Republicans several times to protect Medicare.

• Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) won’t make a decision until she sees a CBO score and has previously said she won’t vote for a bill that raises costs or ads to the deficit.

• Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) is waiting for CBO and shares Sen. Lincoln’s concerns. Additionally, Inside Health Policy notes she could have a problem with a likely $5 billion tax on Pharmacy Benefit Managers.

Making the situation all the more tenuous is the fact that moderate Democrats like Webb, Lincoln and McCaskill aren’t the only ones standing between Harry Reid and government-run health care. In fact, as Reid moves to placate his right, he is facing growing opposition to his left:

• Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) a self-described democratic socialist has said just this week that “[A]s of this point, I’m not voting for it”

• Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) believes that “Things are not moving in the right direction.”

Reid needs 60 votes for cloture, and right now that seems like a whole lot of just-one-more-votes.