GOP Senators About to Fold on ObamaCare?

Update: Reid's "Brilliant" Two-Step: Get Cloture on a Bill Withouth Public Option, Then Slip In Public Option By Amendment.

Erick Erickson at RedState.com reports:

I am told quite reliably that in a meeting today on Capitol Hill, Republican Senators began to rapidly move toward concessions on health care because they are afraid they cannot hold their members. Some Republicans are now thinking of supporting a government program.

Go to the action center and start calling.

Already, Senate Democrats are looking to pass healthcare by attaching it to unrelated legislation — the back door Brian Darling has repeatedly warned us about.

Republicans are starting to waver on this.

Call now. Tell the GOP to stand firm in opposition to the Democrats’ health care plans.

h/t Ace of Spades HQ

Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is weighing a plan to bring the final health care bill to the floor without a public option -- making it much easier to get the 60 votes needed to prevent a Republican filibuster -- and then adding the provision later as an amendment.

The public option amendment would be there waiting, but the 60-vote test would technically be on a bill without the government plan. Then moderate Democrats could drop out for the vote on the public option, which requires just 51 votes for passage.

"It's brilliant," said a top Senate Republican aide. "It gets you your votes on cloture for a package that does not include a public option."

Reid has not revealed whether he will use this tactic, but he's considering it.
"We haven't made any decisions yet," his spokesman, Jim Manley, said. "We have different options -- that is one."

Senate aides suggest that after passage in the upper chamber, the Senate bill -- public option included -- could then be sent to the House, allowing the lower chamber to simply pass Reid's legislation instead of taking up its own bill. That route would avoid a protracted and contentious battle to meld two different bills and might allow President Obama and Democrats to achieve their goal of passing health care reform by year's end.

Open-government proponents slammed the tactic, saying it would be a bait-and-switch gambit for the Senate to put forward a bill without a public insurance option, only to slip it in later.