One thing that could change this year is that if it looks as if President Obama is going

[Selatius]

6. We need a majority, but we could use a liberal majority.

There really can't be much done if half the caucus in Senate is comprised of right-wing or center-right Democrats.

This is why the Public Option had to be deleted. They didn't have enough votes from folks like Baucus and Nelson and others to defeat a Republican filibuster. The only way to get past that was to junk the whole idea entirely and go just the insurance mandate, basically. Then they were willing to release their votes to pass the ACA.