Nancy Pelosi: No Public Option In House Version Of Health Care Reform Bill

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced today that the final version of the health care reform bill that she is sending to the Senate will not include the public option.

"We're talking about something that is not going to be part of the legislation," Pelosi said, noting "with sadness" that the public insurance option won't be part of legislation. "I'm quite sad that the public option is not in there," she said. Earlier Thursday, a spokesman to Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the Majority Whip, said Durbin would "aggressively whip" a health care bill that included a public option. Pelosi, however, put the onus back on the Senate, saying that the chamber didn't have the votes needed for it. "I'm not having the Senate, which didn't have a public option in its bill, put any of that on our doorstep," she said. "It did not prevail. What we will have in reconciliation will be something that is agreed upon, House and Senate, that they can pass and we can pass... It isn't in there because they don't have the votes."