After saying on July 2 that "there needs to be a public option," Eastside Republican Congressman Dave Reichert voted yesterday against a House health care reform bill that includes a strong public option. Reichert said afterward (on Twitter and his web site) that he was acting to protect Americans' health.

The overall committee vote was 23 to 18, with three Democrats joining all of the Ways and Means Republicans in opposition.

The other Washingtonian on Ways and Means, Seattle Democrat Jim McDermott, voted with the majority in favor of the bill—and issued a press release noting that he'd successfully added an amendment to repeal the federal taxes on health care benefits for domestic partners. At present, businesses that offer such domestic partner benefits and employees who receive them are penalized, tax-wise, while there's no such penalty for health benefits offered to spouses of heterosexual employees. Said McDermott:

Doing this will correct a long standing injustice and will help make health care coverage more affordable for more Americans, which is what our effort is all about.

We'll see how far McDermott's amendment makes it. While the overall bill's passage out of Ways and Means is good news for health care reformers, it's just one step in the sausage making.

Still, this is a good reminder of how far apart the two Congressmen from opposite sides of Lake Washington are on the issue.