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All three newscasts covered the day's big political news, the decision by Majority Leader Harry Reid to seek a vote in the Senate on a version of the public option as part of its healthcare bill. Reid suggested a federal plan that would allow individual states to choose not to participate, a so-called opt-out. NBC's Kelly O'Donnell declared that for Democratic liberals "this kind of public option--or any kind of public option--is considered a victory." CBS' Nancy Cordes treated Reid's decision as a big deal, calling the opt-out "the cornerstone of the new Senate healthcare reform bill."
For months the public option had been "declared dead" in the Senate, CBS' Cordes reflected. "Liberal Democrats just kept coming up with different versions until they hit on one that, it seems, those three or four moderate holdouts might be able to live with." By contrast, George Stephanopoulos speculated on ABC that Reid "still may not have the votes to get this to the Senate floor." He pointed to three Democrats--Blanche Lincoln, Mary Landrieu, Ben Nelson--and one Republican who may now defect. "The President is very skeptical of this move," he commented. It "almost certainly" will not be supported by Olympia Snowe, hitherto the White House's lone Republican ally in its Senate coalition.
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