So the Democrats have introduced their healthcare reform bill- all 1,990 pages of it! There has been much debate and arguing over the public option, which is included and even carries a complementary tax on the rich to help pay for it. The debate over the public option has largely focused on the senate, where 60 votes are needed to pass legislation.

And White House senior advisor David Axelrod said that President Obama believes the public option is valuable. "Both the House and the Senate are going to move forward on bills that likely will have the public option," Axelrod continued.

So we’ve got an almost 2,000 page piece of health care legislation going up for a vote in the House that includes the public option. It will pass. As a symbolic gesture to make them look like strong politicians or something, the Republicans in the House will create and offer up their own bill. Perhaps they will use it as a bargaining tool, perhaps they will simply go for bravado and machismo as far as health care goes- in the House it’s almost possible to lose yourself into thinking that the health care insurance industry is the outlaw underdog that everybody ends up rooting for- like they are the real American system that the evil, socialist White House is trying to destroy. Muahahahahahahah…

Of course, the health care industry is anything but an underdog. After the House passes their version of health care reform with a public option included the real game will begin: The senate.

If you’ve been following, you know the names of the folks who are theoretically on the fence: Olympia Snowe, Joe Lieberman- Snowe because she backed the version of healthcare reform that came out of Baucus’ Finance Committee that did NOT include the public option, opting instead for a large nonprofit that would provide low-cost health insurance for those who would be required to buy it but not be able to afford it from a private, for profit insurance company.

Lieberman is on the fence in the sense that he is politically registered as an Independent, though he does caucus with the Democrats. On this issue, though, he is firmly in the Republican party opinion- very anti-public option.

Lieberman told “Face the Nation.""The government going into health insurance business is such a mistake that I would use power of a single senator to stop a final vote.” So he will not be getting behind anything.

It remains to be seen whether the 60 vote majority will hold in the senate- it is hard to see it making its way to Obama’s desk with a public option right now- which could spell disaster for Obama and for the Democrats in next year’s midterm elections.

What is for sure is that nobody will be raising any taxes:  "The president has been clear -- he does not want to impose a tax on the middle class," said senior White House advisor Valerie Jarrett. And we know the Republicans aren’t arguing for taxes.

So whatever happens, we can be absolutely, positively sure that it won’t cost us a penny…