Democratic Senators applauded themselves some time ago by claiming they had adopted a rule dispensing with the 60-vote requirement they normally imposed on themselves to pass any contentious legislation. The solution, they told us, was "reconcilation," a process they promised could be applied to health care reform and only needed 51 votes.

Now Sen. Kent Conrad tells us that was all a ruse, that in fact we’re stuck with the 60-vote requirement, which means Republicans and one or two Democrats can block any meaningful health care reform — which they are more than happy to do.

The implication that the Democratic Leadership (and the President) essentially lied to us came in this startling interview (for other reasons I’ll discuss later) Conrad gave to Ezra Klein:

Klein: And why do you think that reconciliation won’t work for health reform?

Sen. Conrad: Reconciliation was never designed to write substantive legislation. It was designed solely for deficit reduction. The whole idea was you would change numbers, not policy. You would change numbers on the revenue side of the equation and the spending side of the equation.

And so, the way it works, under current rules, if your in reconciliation, you have to be deficit neutral over five years. Under the budget resolution, health care can be deficit neutral under 10 years. That’s a big difference.

Two, under reconciliation, you’re subjected to the Byrd rule. The Byrd rule says that anything that doesn’t cost money or save money, or that only costs money or saves money in a way that’s incidental to the policy, are subject to strike. The result, for instance, is that all the insurance market provisions are subject to strike. All the wellness and prevention provisions are subject to strike. The Senate parliamentarian said to us that if you try to write substantive health reform in reconciliation, you’ll end up with Swiss cheese.

Perhaps this is just Conrad’s own interpretation — he’d didn’t want reconciliation applied — and there is a plausibe alternative interpretion. The question is, which interpretation is the Democratic leadership planning on? Because that affects how they see their bargaining position and what has to be compromised (and whether the compromise is worth it) to get a bill. Do we really need Conrad’s pushing a co-op notion, because we need 60 votes? Or do we already have at least 50 votes for a robust public plan?

I think we’re entitled to an honest statement from the Senate Democratic leadership and the White House. How many votes do we need — 51 or 60? And don’t bother with the usual mush about how it would be nice to get bipartisan support. Give us a straight answer, in public, and say it in front of Conrad.

Harry? Mr. President?