The Washington Post is reporting:
Sen. Ben Nelson (Neb.), the final Democratic holdout on health care, announced to his caucus Saturday morning that he would support the Senate reform bill, clearing the way for final passage by Christmas.
"We're there," said Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), as he headed into a special meeting to outline the deal.
Democratic leaders spent days trying to hammer out a deal with Nelson, and worked late Friday night with him on abortion coverage language that had proved the major stumbling block. Nelson also secured other favors for his home state.
The package closely tracks the $848 billion measure Reid (D-Nev.) drafted this month, before he entered into negotiations aimed at winning the 60 votes he needs to avert a GOP filibuster, aides said. Since then, Reid has made numerous concessions to moderate Democrats, scrapping an effort to create a government-run insurance plan and beefing up prohibitions on spending federal funds for abortion coverage, a change demanded by the final holdout, Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska.
Instead of a public option, the final product would allow private firms for the first time to offer national insurance policies to all Americans, outside the jurisdiction of state regulations. Those plans would be negotiated through the Office of Personnel Management, the same agency that handles health coverage for federal workers and members of Congress.
So it appears that the Democrats are on track to shove this monstrosity down our throats, despite opposition by an average of 61% of the people in recent polls.
My family has property in Nebraska and family connections there. I, for one, will do what I can to see that Nelson is defeated for re-election.
No doubt there will be legal challenges (including the constitutionality of the bill) that could tie this up for years.
UPDATE (12/20/09): A website has been set up seeking the defeat of Ben Nelson in 2012 called Give Ben The Boot.
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