Louise Slaughter Says "NO!"

Surprising. After the noises I'd heard about Grivalja going along with the "screw the House and the horses they rode in on" attitude towards health care reform, i was expecting all the other Reps to fall in line as well.

But Louise Slaughter is out:

Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY), chairman of the powerful Rules Committee, wrote in a CNN op-ed today that the health care bill should be scrapped entirely.

"The Senate health care bill is not worthy of the historic vote that the House took a month ago," Slaughter wrote.

She listed her problems with the Senate bill: an individual mandate, no public option, no antitrust exemption and the Nelson abortion language, among other things.

"Supporters of the weak Senate bill say "just pass it -- any bill is better than no bill. I strongly disagree," she wrote. "It's time that we draw the line on this weak bill and ask the Senate to go back to the drawing board. The American people deserve at least that."

It may be that select progressives are being allowed to oppose the bill in order to ensure that they don't face serious primary fights and/or negative publicity.

Or it may be that she really does think it's a crock.

Either way, this changes things a bit.