Goodbye, Public Option, Hello Senate Bill? Hoyer Vows, 'Not Going to Happen'

Setting up yet another intraparty battle, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said Tuesday that although he thinks the House would be willing to vote for a bill without a public-run insurance option, they will most definitely not accept the Senate bill in full without a conference committee to debate the competing versions of a reform package.

"Many of you have asked me whether (the House) is simply going to take the Senate bill," Hoyer said to reporters. "That's not going to happen."

With his statement, Hoyer debunked the latest Capitol Hill rumor that the House leadership is negotiating with the Senate to vote on whatever passes the Senate, thus avoiding a possibly lengthy and contentious conference and ensuring swift final passage of the bill.

"We have to figure out what the Senate will pass and then look at it," Hoyer said, adding later, "There are significant and important differences between what the Senate is proposing and what we proposed. Those matters will have to be discussed and it will take some time to resolve those differences."

In addition to the question of the future of the public option, the House and Senate proposals currently have significant differences on who will see increased taxes to pay for reform, how abortion services are treated, and whether illegal immigrants could access insurance plans created by health exchanges if they pay with their own money.

Finally, Hoyer also addressed the Senate's unwieldy debate thus far, including Sen. Joe Lieberman's insistence the the public option and Medicare expansion be removed from the bill. "I often talk about the psychology of consensus," Hoyer said. "To often, it appears as if the psychology in the Senate is the psychology of one."