House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rallied the faithful in San Francisco Saturday afternoon, drawing the loudest applause (there had already been cheers for heavy-hitter Democrats, San Francisco liberal causes and hometown heroine Pelosi herself) with an assertion that passage of the health reform bill will happen soon. She said the House bill is the stronger, and negotiations to reconcile House and Senate versions into a final bill “are intense.”
Whether that final bill will include the public option her audience of several hundred supporters clearly wanted remains in doubt – and Pelosi was keeping her own options open. “Any bill we approve will have to pass the Triple A test,” she said: “Affordability, specifically for the middle class, Accountability – insurance companies will have to be held accountable; and Accessibility.”
Accessibility, of course, brings the issue back to the public option, which the bill will have, Pelosi maintained, “…or what the public option was intended to do: keep the insurance companies honest.”
The invitation-only Saturday event was billed as a New Year Celebration, and held on the first anniversary of a similar gathering hailing her ascension to Speaker last year. Both took place at Delancey Street, a residential self-help community founded in 1971 to help substance abusers, ex-felons and “people from America’s underclass” get back on their feet and into productive lives. A few of the 14,000+ who have graduated from Delancey Street programs mingled with the likes of former state senator and current California Democratic Party Chairman John Burton, prominent gay California State Senator Mark Leno, and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom. Almost anyone who is, or aspires to be, anyone in local Democratic politics was working the room.
Pelosi worked it herself, smiling and greeting her way through the crowds for several hours. When she returns to Washington after this weekend at home, the greetings and workings are guaranteed to be a little more fractured.