At the time these videos were shot, Reid’s manager’s amendment hadn’t been released yet, so there wasn’t a lot to talk about. Instead, I decided to put my best (frozen) face on and chat with the Senator’s as they made their way in to vote. As you can imagine, in the middle of a blizzard, they weren’t very chatty.

The rest of my day was spent asking (mostly) Republicans if they thought the Amendment would be improved if the mandate was stripped. With the exception of one or two (out of about 8 or 10 that I spoke with), they thought killing the mandate would be a net positive. One Republican Senator who has been completely immersed in the weeds on this told me it would make a bad bill even worse.

Virtually every one of them told me that this is a big, dishonest game. That there is no way we add people to the system on the public dime and break even. Their suspicion is that this is the first step down the road to single-payer. They say you can’t get there in one big leap, so you nibble around the edges at first, and expand from there.

It’s an argument I’ve heard in a different form from Democrats (absent the charge of dishonesty). Over and over again, I’ve been told that this bill needs to pass because it is the first step in a process. That health care reform doesn’t end this year; it begins this year. That every year from here on out, health care reform will be on the legislative agenda.

One last note.

Senator Inhofe was walking back from the tunnel and I engaged him in some talk about health care reform. It was a slow day – no real business is being done on Saturday, let alone in the middle of a blizzard – so I walked all the way to the Senator’s office with him. He invited me into his office and we chatted for about 30 minutes. It turns out that today is Senator Inhofe’s 50th wedding anniversary. He was supposed to fly back to Tulsa to celebrate with his entire family, but the snowstorm has shut down the DC airports (some irony there, huh?). Lucky for him, his wife is in town, so he’s able to share this special day with her.

If you get a chance, email him your best wishes and congratulations.