This is just a short diary to thank Leader Reid for all his hard work in making health care reform possible.
He had a very tough and underappreciated job trying to lead 58 Democrats plus Joe Lieberman toward health care reform. That is hard beyond words. Reid had ZERO margin in his numbers to work with, and any one of the senators had a tremendous amount of leverage. In addition, he had to deal with a large proportion of the Senate that was comprised of Blue Dogs.
Second (and I didn't understand this point previously), Reid had to deal with the fact that he didn't have the power to strip people of their committee chairmanships since the chairmanships are Senate positions (and stripping those would have required 60 votes) and not caucus positions.
Third, Harry Reid's letter guarantee of 51 signatures for reconciliation to the House, as well as his close coordination with Speaker Pelosi and President Obama on other issues, were critical in HCR's passage.
As a poster here once said, Harry Reid is a workhorse, not a showhorse. I greatly appreciate all the hard work (including Christmas Eve voting) he did to get this bill through the Senate with no votes to spare and his attempt to work in a public option. He believes deeply in health care reform, and he did his best. Thank you Leader Reid, and I pray that the senator's wife and daughter have a speedy and full recovery.