71803448CS016_Senate_Holds_While the 60 votes necessary to include a public insurance option in Senate health care reform legislation may prove elusive, U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman told New Mexico radio reporters yesterday that he’s still trying.

The so-called “Gang of Six” senators met yesterday afternoon to continue to craft a bipartisan bill in the Senate Finance Committee.  Bingaman has repeatedly affirmed his support for the public option, but given that the 60 votes for the public option aren’t readily apparent, he said “the only rational course is to say what can we proceed with?”

But if a compromise bill all can live with doesn’t materialize, Bingaman also reaffirmed his commitment to help push through a health care reform bill through the s0-called budget reconciliation process.

“I think the majority leader’s position, and the president’s position, and my position as well is that first preference would be to get a bill that would enjoy 60 votes, that we could pass through the Senate that would do comprehensive health care reform,” he said. “If that’s not possible than obviously we need to look at what we can be done through the reconciliation process which… only requires 51 votes.”

Only bills that affect revenue or the deficit are allowed to be considered in the budget reconciliation process.

Bingaman said that if a health care reform bill is produced through reconciliation, it would need to be revenue neutral in five years rather than the ten years provided for in the bills already produced in the House and Senate.

And, while he’s hopeful there would be 51 votes to push a reform bill through reconciliation, he doesn’t actually know that there are.

Bingaman was asked how his meetings with constituents affected his position on health care. He said the events of the past month reinforced his beliefs about health care but that they also impressed on him how important it is to control the cost of legislation.

“I heard a lot of stories about problems encountered with the current insurance system we have in place, [which] clearly reinforced belief that we need to make some changes,” he said. “At same time heard about concerns about cost, concern about cost to federal deficit, whether or not we will accomplish the reduction of growth in health care costs.”

Bingaman added, “I came back from the recess with a greater focus on how we nail down the cost reductions that we’re hoping to implement through this health care reform effort.”