Will the House Compromise?

Via LivePulse:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s com­ments yes­ter­day sig­nal­ing will­ing­ness to scrap the pub­lic option already have insid­ers talk­ing about what she wants in return. With the pub­lic option’s future always in doubt, there has been an assump­tion that Pelosi would extract other con­ces­sions in order to fill the hole in lib­er­als’ hearts where the pub­lic option would have been. And yes­ter­day, those sec­ondary must-​​haves began cir­cu­lat­ing around town. So if Pelosi can’t get a pub­lic option pony for Christ­mas, she wants to replace the Senate’s tax on high-​​end insur­ance plans with a tax on high-​​income house­holds. And she wants the drug indus­try to shoul­der the entire cost of fill­ing the donut hole. Both moves are unpop­u­lar in the Sen­ate, but could keep lib­er­als on board should mod­er­ates suc­cess­fully block a pub­lic plan and a Medicare expan­sion, which looks increas­ingly likely. The donut hole demand would blow up the PhRMA-​​White House deal and give lib­er­als a much sought-​​after scalp. And it has the added bonus of being good pol­i­tics. Giv­ing seniors more afford­able drugs would be an imme­di­ate ben­e­fit of reform that an impor­tant vot­ing block would see in 2010. It’s a twofer.

*Sigh.* This is all I really want for Christmas.