I'm not getting my hopes up, but this is encouraging:
...in order to move health care through the House, Democrats either need to pick up progressives or conservatives. And the budget reconciliation process does not lend itself to altering abortion language reform, because that wouldn't have a direct, substantial impact on the budget.
That leaves progressives as the bloc available to pick up. Their demands -- changes related to the tax on insurance, a Medicaid or Medicare expansion, and a public option -- would likely be allowable using reconciliation. (The Senate parliamentarian would have the final say.)
Two House freshmen, Reps. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) and Jared Polis (D-Colo.), circulated a letter, looking for signatures, that will be delivered to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Thursday on behalf of the plan, Polis told HuffPost.
Also...
"It is very likely that the public option could have passed the Senate, if brought up under majority-vote 'budget reconciliation' rules," reads the letter. "While there were valid reasons stated for not using reconciliation before, especially given that some important provisions of health care reform wouldn't qualify under the reconciliation rules, those reasons no longer exist."
I mean, it makes perfect sense. If this is the path forward, why not add the Medicare buy-in or the public option? The question is whether the Senate moderates would be able to bring more votes into their coalition. A reconciliation vote with the public option would be tight. It's more likely that the public option would be the Reid/Schumer opt-out public option.
At this point, I'm done making predictions, but I'm glad that this reconciliation plan is moving forward.