Despite Infighting, Democrats May Proceed Alone on Health Reform

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• JIM LEHRER:

  And still to come on the NewsHour tonight: the Swiss bank deal; crowded California prisons; and "60 Minutes" creator Don Hewitt.

  That follows our health care reform update. Tonight, we look at the squabbling among the Democrats. NewsHour correspondent Tom Bearden begins.

• TOM BEARDEN:

  Liberal Democrats are in an uproar after the Obama administration signaled over the weekend that a public option was not an essential part of health reform. New York Congressman Anthony Weiner.

• REP. ANTHONY WEINER, D-N.Y:

  If the president thinks we're going to get the votes without public option, he's got another thing coming. That won't pass the House.

• TOM BEARDEN:

  For months, the president has insisted that a public option was a necessary part of fixing the country's health care system. This is what he told the American Medical Association in June.

• U.S. PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:

  If you like what you're getting, keep it. Nobody is forcing you to shift. But if you're not, this gives you some new options, and I believe one of these options needs to be a public option that will give people a broader range of choices and inject competition into the health care market so that…

• TOM BEARDEN:

  But the president and his aides have also stopped short of making the public option a deal-breaker. This is what Mr. Obama said at a weekend stop in Grand Junction, Colorado.

• U.S. PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:

  This is a legitimate debate to have. All I'm saying is, though, that the public option, whether we have it or we don't have it, is not the entirety of health care reform. This is just one sliver of it.

• TOM BEARDEN:

  Those comments, and similar ones made by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on Sunday, have sparked a firestorm amongst liberal Democrats. Representative Jesse Jackson, Jr., of Illinois was asked yesterday at a town hall meeting if he could support a bill without a public option.

• TOWN HALL QUESTIONER:

  If there is not a viable public option in the final legislation, health care reform legislation, would you vote for that legislation?

• REP. JESSE JACKSON, JR., D- Ill.:

  A health care reform without a viable, strong public option is a non-starter for us.

• TOM BEARDEN:

  Jackson is also a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which sent a letter to Sebelius on Monday saying that taking the public option off the table would be a "grave error."

  That view is not shared by all Democrats in Congress. Moderates, such as North Dakota Senator Kent Conrad, contend that a public option would make it impossible to attract Republican votes and would doom any health care bill.

• SEN. KENT CONRAD, D-N.D.:

  The fact of the matter is, there are not the votes in the United States Senate for the public option. There never have been. So to continue to chase that rabbit, I think, is just a wasted effort.