Plan B Exists But May Not Be Next Health Care Step

Update: Senate Democrats appear unenthusiastic, at least today, on a Plan B.

"We are working full-time to see how we can finish the job on comprehensive health care," a Senate Democratic leadership source told Fox. "We are not exploring any other option until we conclude that is not possible. And we have not concluded that. It is also difficult to imagine this (Plan B) getting 60 votes. Republicans will never go for it."

Origin post begins here:

President Obama has developed a scaled-down version of health care reform that would cost about a quarter of current plans and rely on parents covering children on their own polices until age 26, congressional and administration sources confirm to Fox.

Administration officials say the plan is "not where we are now" and was drawn up at Obama's request after the devastating loss in the Massachusetts Senate race that cost Democrats their filibuster-proof majority.

"It was ordered up by the president so he could get a sense of his options post-Massachusetts," said an administration official.

Details of the White House Plan B first surfaced in today's Wall Street Journal.

The smaller plan, according to the White House, has been overtaken by Obama's 11-page proposal on the White House Web Site, an amalgam of the comprehensive and far more costly House and Senate health care bills with an estimated 10-year price tag of $950 billion. Oddly, Obama has said nothing in public on behalf of his new "starting point" proposal in the three days since it made its internet debut - the closest he came was a speech Wednesday to the Business Round Table extolling the virtues of overall health care reform.

Democratic congressional sources say they have been briefed informally by "some" White House officials on the smaller bill's potential contents - which may also include an expansion of Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program, two federal-state health care partnerships that care for poor adults and children.

According to the Journal, this smaller plan would cost roughly $250 billion, though administration and congressional officials said no precise cost estimate has been prepared. That's also true of Obama's newest variation of comprehensive health care reform. The White House declined to submit the plan to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office for a price estimate before today's 6-hour bi-partisan health care summit.

The idea of what one congressional Democrat called "skinny" health care reform may encounter stiff resistance in the House.

"Inaction and instrumentalism are simply unacceptable," Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in remarks released before today's summit.

As a result, House Democrats are almost sure to reject calls from any quarter - even the White House - for a scaled back bill.

"We are going forward with a big bill," a top Democrat told Fox.

But which bill?

House Majority Whip James Clyburn of South Carolina told Fox and Friends today that Obama's proposal "is not a legislative plan" and would have to be reshaped before the House could move forward.

Another complication arises in the context of now-active Democratic consideration of a 51-vote strategy in the Senate known as reconciliation, a procedural maneuver that would sidestep the filibuster. But that strategy can only work if the House passes the existing Senate bill, one numerous rank-and-file House Democrats have criticized.

For now, the White House is steering clear of procedural hurdles as it looks to today's summit as an opportunity to reframe Republican opposition and possibly rally House and Senate Democrats around a central but still-undefined health care bill.

"We are optimistic, that doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy, it's going to be hard," senior Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett told Fox. " The American people aren't interested in procedural analysis. What they want is an up or down vote. They deserve an up-or-down vote on health care and we are determined to make sure that happens."

An up-or-down vote on what?

That remains the question.