The house barely passed the bill at 220-215. Of the 257 Democrats in the house 56 are considered conservative bluedog Democrats. If you agree that almost every liberal voted for the bill then what you have left is 18 bluedogs voting for the bill out of 56. That means only 1/3 of the bluedogs voted for the bill in the house. There are 58 Democrats in the senate. Out of that 58 around 15-20 are bluedogs. The Democrats will need every single one of them to vote for the bill to even have a chance of passing it. It is very unlikely a bill will pass.
Interesting corundum. We all know the true intention is complete Government run health care. Yet Abortion funding will never be voted into the program. As long as the private sector has a foothold in the insurance market ,government funded abortion can be banned. But the Democrats know they want to remove the private sector from insurance but that in effect will outlaw all abortion. No way will the Liberals vote on healthcare without abortion funding. But then they lose blue dog votes. This is how this effort will fail.
Does anyone besides me think that what will happen is that the Senate will pass a version without the public option; the bill will go to conference and a watered down version that will be a goldmine for insurance companies will result. Both houses will pass it, just to accomplish something, but not before we hear once again, for the umpteenth time, of the struggling fetus that was vacuumed out of a womb with suction thirty times greater than a Hoover. The president will sign it just to accomplish something. And the health insurance companies will take it to the bank. We traders will go long insurance companies. Seven years from now health care costs will be even more out of control than they are now, and the Republicans will be swept into office by a landslide; the key plank of their platform will be a promised overhaul of the U.S. health care system.
I suspect it will pass without the Public option. Which in my opinion it will become a super goldmine for private insurance companies. Taxpayer socialism to make private insurance companies richer.