Obamacare is Dead

[David]

It's over for both the House and Senate bill. Pelosi just doesn't have the votes to pass the Senate bill. This is all about polls showing the voters don't want it. Pelosi has just waved the white flag saying the House can't pass the Senate bill.

They still may try to get "Obamacare Lite" passed. However, to get anything passed now it will have to be modest. Probably just insurance reform. One thing is clear. Their dream of government controlled health care is dead.

[schaabdl]

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dc/...#ixzz0dH1r09ON
Don't applaud too soon!

[annett]

Originally Posted by David

It's over for both the House and Senate bill. Pelosi just doesn't have the votes to pass the Senate bill. This is all about polls showing the voters don't want it. Pelosi has just waved the white flag saying the House can't pass the Senate bill.

They still may try to get "Obamacare Lite" passed. However, to get anything passed now it will have to be modest. Probably just insurance reform. One thing is clear. Their dream of government controlled health care is dead.

I do not share your certainty or partake in the applause. I believe Obama & Co are licking their wounds and are going to go about mandating this monstrosity in another way. They have their agenda and are absolutely determined to see it come to fruition. Obama has the power of the pen which is almost like waving a magic wand and that is a power he has shown no hesitation in using.

[David]

Y'all may be correct. I don't doubt they will attempt to resurrect a bill. But, the window is closed for public options. Mandates on individuals and employers. Insurance reform may be brought forward.

Keeping the powder dry, however.

[David]

I really doubt they will go with reconciliation. If they do it has to relate to budget issues and only has a life of five years. After this weeks news I really doubt they go this route.


Please Mr. Bear, Don’t Throw me into the Reconciliation Patch

SOURCE

[Orin]

B'rer Fox threw B'rer Rabbit "inter that there briar patch", not B'rer Bear. Can you even find that movie anymore? I don't see Disney bringing around the 50th anniversary special edition on DVD. Monty Python clip was wonderful.

[David]

A majority of Americans say President Obama and congressional Democrats should suspend work on the health care bill that has been on the verge of passage and consider alternatives that would draw more Republican support, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds.

SOURCE

[schaabdl]

http://corner.nationalreview.com/pos...UxOTkzNDcyYWU=
The left is not yet down for the count.

[David]

Not dead. I take everything Dick Morris says with a boulder of salt. However, the Dem scheme seems plausible. They could be very up front about what they are doing. Will House libs all go along? What about Dem Pro Lifers in the House? They surely won't sign onto the Senate bill. Still it doesn't matter whether the Dems lie to one another. If they can pass the Senate bill whole in the House we get Obamacare.

SOURCE

[Rifleman]

I don't know David, it seems Pelosi and Reid are devious enough to try, however, the backlash were it to actually happen wold be catostrophic to the Democrat Party, much worse than what happened with the Assault weapons Bill. Any kind of continued push will no doubt push the numbers against them even farther. It won't help the economy either, since the Senate Bill involves huge increases in taxes and involuntary payments. The balme this week for the Dim spindoctors is that the 400 point slide of the Stock Market is because of resistance to the nomination of Ben Breneke to a second term as FED chariman.

[David]

Originally Posted by Rifleman

I don't know David, it seems Pelosi and Reid are devious enough to try, however, the backlash were it to actually happen wold be catostrophic to the Democrat Party, much worse than what happened with the Assault weapons Bill. Any kind of continued push will no doubt push the numbers against them even farther. It won't help the economy either, since the Senate Bill involves huge increases in taxes and involuntary payments. The balme this week for the Dim spindoctors is that the 400 point slide of the Stock Market is because of resistance to the nomination of Ben Breneke to a second term as FED chariman.

Agreed. However, I just read a piece saying the White House doesn't believe Mass. voters voted for Scott Brown over health care. These people are so obsessed with passing this thing they are capable of anything. They truly believe passing this now will entrench them down the line even if they suffer a temporary political slap down. They underestimate the anger if they pull a stunt like this.

[schaabdl]

If Mr. Morris is correct, plausible but I don't think likely, then I will predict both houses flip by substantial margins come November.

[Rifleman]

David wrote; Agreed. However, I just read a piece saying the White House doesn't believe Mass. voters voted for Scott Brown over health care. These people are so obsessed with passing this thing they are capable of anything. They truly believe passing this now will entrench them down the line even if they suffer a temporary political slap down. They underestimate the anger if they pull a stunt like this.

Yes, that's what Gibbs said om Fox News Sunday. I can't believe they actually believe that, it's probably just another strategy. That actually makes things even more scarey. It demonstrates a determination to get their agenda passed no matter what. What's next, a scorched earth policy? As for the rest of us, it won't produce warm fuzzy thoughts, it will be more like a raw open wound. The "populist" campaign is doomed to failure, as it didn't work for Jim Hightower either. People today don't understand the history or ramifications of "Populism", and I can't understand Obama's possible use, unless confusion is part of the plan.

It will be difficult, considering that the sort of Health Care reform has already been rejected, for Obama to change minds. There has been nothing for the people in the entire Dim Health Care reform process. Deals have been cut with every powerful lobby group from the first day. Big Pharma has been bought off, as has the insurance industry, and the AMA and even the Unions. The only parties left out were Republicans and the people. And they used our money to essentailly bribe the special interests and specific politicians. And all of this was done in secret, exactly the opposite of what Obama promised. If I object to being forced to buy Insurance on the penalty of paying extra taxes, or going to jail, or dying early because of Meidcare cuts, to essential services, I risk being slandered by supporters of the paln.

[David]

NY Times urging the Dems to use reconciliation.

Don’t Give Up Now

It would be a terrible mistake for Democrats to abandon comprehensive health care reform just because voters in the Massachusetts Senate race last week decided that they liked the Republican, Scott Brown, more than the Democrat, Martha Coakley.

There is no question that without a filibuster-proof majority it will be a lot harder to pass a bill. But it should not be impossible if Congressional Democrats and the White House show courage and creativity. Health care reform is too important to throw away, and it is not too late to persuade voters that it is in their interest.

Congress is achingly close to passing legislation that would cover most uninsured Americans and provide much more security for all Americans — guaranteeing that if they lose their jobs they will be able to buy affordable policies and can’t be denied coverage because of pre-existing conditions.

If the Democrats quit now, so close to the goal line, the opportunity for large-scale reform could be lost for years. Meanwhile, the number of uninsured, currently more than 46 million, will keep going up and the cost of health care will continue to soar.

Many panicky Democrats see Mr. Brown’s win as proof that angry voters will punish them in November if they press ahead with reform. We believe that is a misreading of what happened and what’s possible.

Ms. Coakley ran an inept campaign. And the White House hasn’t done enough to address voters’ profound and legitimate fears about losing their jobs and their homes. But President Obama and Congressional Democrats have also clearly failed to explain why reform will make Americans’ lives more secure — not less.

What makes this all the more frustrating is that Massachusetts, which adopted its own very similar health care reform in 2006, is a compelling example of both the benefits and popularity of the effort.

A poll taken in Massachusetts after the election by The Washington Post, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health found that a surprising 68 percent of those who had voted said that they supported their own state’s plan, including slightly more than half of those who had voted for Mr. Brown.

Mr. Brown, who promised to block reform in Washington, voted for his state’s program in 2006 and did not campaign against it this year. Instead, he argued that since Massachusetts’ citizens already have coverage, why should they help pay to expand coverage elsewhere.

That cynical I’ve-got-mine argument doesn’t make a lot of sense — even in Massachusetts. The Senate bill would funnel additional money into the Massachusetts program and federal efforts to rein in costs should ultimately benefit all of the states.

Democrats should take another look at what really happened in Massachusetts and then summon the nerve to enact comprehensive reform. They must make clear to voters that they have little to fear. Even the mandate requiring everyone to buy insurance doesn’t kick in until 2014. And they must make clear that reform offers immediate gains, especially for middle-class Americans.

Once the bill becomes law, many dependent children could remain on their parents’ policies until age 26. Insurers would no longer be able to set lifetime caps on the amount they will pay for health care. Children could not be denied coverage because of pre-existing conditions. The gap in drug coverage for Medicare beneficiaries, known as the doughnut hole, would begin to close. And small businesses would immediately get tax credits to cover their employees.

Recent polls show that the public is divided, with more opposing the bills than favoring them. The negatives have been driven up by critics’ distortions about a supposed government takeover of medicine and the tawdry deal-making necessary to win 60 votes to overcome a Republican filibuster in the Senate.

Still, a recent national poll by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation found that large shares of people became more supportive when told about such provisions as tax credits for small businesses that offer coverage, exchanges where people could choose among competing policies, and rules against denying coverage.

We are hearing a lot of talk in Washington, including from President Obama, about possibly paring down the current bills — to cover many fewer of the uninsured and focus instead on reeling in the worst abuses of the insurance industry and reining in health care costs. That could be difficult technically; many of the parts are not easy to disentangle without undermining their effectiveness. And the politics on Capitol Hill — where the Republicans are determined to oppose pretty much anything President Obama endorses — are unlikely to get easier.

The most promising path forward would be for House Democrats to pass the Senate bill as is and send it to the president for his signature. That would allow the administration and Congress to pivot immediately to job creation and other economic issues. The Senate bill is not perfect, but it would expand coverage to 94 percent of all citizens and legal residents by 2019, reduce the deficit for decades to come, and create pilot programs to move the medical system toward better care at lower costs.

Rank-and-file House Democrats apparently won’t accept the Senate bill without modification. So Congressional leaders are looking for ways to commit both the House and the Senate to changes — such as better subsidies to make insurance more affordable — that could be approved through parallel “budget reconciliation” legislation that could be approved by a simple majority in both the Senate and House.

This is a once-in-a-generation chance. President Obama must explain to the American people why reform is essential to their health and security and this nation’s future. And he must insist that Congress finish the job.

SOURCE

[David]

Dems vow to revive health-care bill

Erica Werner ASSOCIATED PRESS

Giving up on the health-care overhaul is not an option, the top House Democrat said Wednesday as lawmakers looked to President Obama for guidance in his State of the Union address on how to revive the stalled legislation.

Asked if Congress might abandon a health-care initiative beset with political and policy problems, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, responded: "I don't see that as a possibility. We will have something."

Democrats got encouragement Wednesday from groups as diverse as the nation's Catholic bishops and the head of the largest labor union federation. In a letter to members of Congress, the bishops urged lawmakers to "recommit themselves to enacting genuine health care reform."

"The health care debate, with all its political and ideological conflict, seems to have lost its central moral focus and policy priority, which is to ensure that affordable, quality, life-giving care is available to all," said clergy from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. "Now is not the time to abandon this task, but rather to set aside partisan divisions and special interest pressures to find ways to enact genuine reform."

Similarly, AFL-CIO President Richard L. Trumka said the Senate should come up with a measure that the House can pass. "We fought too long and too hard for health care to quit for now," Mr. Trumka said in an interview.

Both the Catholic Church and labor unions have flexed their political muscle in the debate. The bishops say they won't support a final bill that includes Senate-passed language they see as too weak in restricting taxpayer funding for abortion. Labor unions pushed successfully to weaken a proposed tax on high-cost insurance plans.

Mrs. Pelosi didn't say whether the final bill will be the sweeping overhaul sought by Mr. Obama or smaller-scale legislation that accomplishes only some of his goals. Democrats were on the verge of passing far-reaching legislation, but the loss of a Massachusetts Senate seat has cost them the 60-vote majority needed to deliver.

Stunned by the loss, Democratic leaders have taken health-care legislation off the fast track as they try to find path forward acceptable to rank-and-file Democrats wary of unhappy midterm election voters.

Lawmakers said they don't expect Mr. Obama to offer a specific legislative strategy in Wednesday night's speech, but they are looking for a full-throated call for a comprehensive bill.

"The president effectively will hit the reset button . . . after which we'll have a matter of weeks, not months, to get this right," said Rep. Anthony Weiner, New York Democrat.

Not so, according to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat.

"We're going to find out how to proceed," Mr. Reid told reporters Tuesday, "but there is no rush."

The House and Senate separately passed 10-year, nearly $1 trillion bills last year to remake the nation's medical system with new requirements for nearly everyone to carry health insurance and new regulations on insurers' practices. Negotiators were in the final stages of reconciling the differences between the two measures before last week's GOP upset in the race for the Senate seat long held by the late Edward M. Kennedy.

Democrats acknowledge that opposition to the health-care remake in Washington helped spark the Massachusetts repudiation.

The option attracting the most attention is for the House to pass the Senate bill with changes. Rep. James E. Clyburn, South Carolina Democrat, told reporters Tuesday he thinks the House could do so if lawmakers get rid of provisions such as special Medicaid deals for Louisiana and Nebraska and dial back a tax on high-cost insurance plans opposed by labor unions.

But two centrist senators threw up a roadblock to the approach because it would require using a special budget-related procedure to go around Republican opponents in the Senate, a calculated risk sure to inflame critics on the political right. Sens. Evan Bayh, Indiana Democrat, and Blanche Lincoln, Arkansas Democrat -- both of whom face re-election this year in Republican-leaning states -- said they would oppose taking that step.

The strategy requires only 51 votes to advance, but Senate leaders may not be able to round up the support. Even if they do, final action could stretch into late next month or beyond. And a number of Democrats sounded Tuesday as if health care was the last thing they wanted to be dealing with.

[David]

Why ObamaCare Isn't Flying
It was foolish of President Obama to think he could reform 16% of the nation's economy.
By DANIEL HENNINGER

This is the sound of President Obama's health-care reform bill crashing to earth:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Tuesday: "We're not on health care now. We talked a lot about it in the past."

Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein: "It's a time out."

The bill's advocates can't believe this is happening. They elected a popular and charismatic Democratic president. With him came a filibuster-proof congressional majority. Done deal. Write the bill, vote it into everlasting life, and burn votive candles to Franklin Roosevelt's unfinished national entitlement legacy.

After seven nonstop months ObamaCare is failing, just as ClintonCare failed after a year's effort in 1994. It's clear there is something inherently wrong in what the Democrats have been trying to do here. What is it?

The answer lies in the often-repeated phrase that they are trying to reform "16% of the American economy." Why would anyone think it possible in 2010—as politics, economics or mere practical feasibility—to reorder 16% of a $14 trillion economy of 300 million people living in 50 separate states whose geography is 16 times larger than France?

The Obama reformers are driven by the idea that their bill would fulfill a dream running back 70 years to 1939, when FDR failed to win passage of a universal health-care bill.

But this isn't 1939. It's not even 1994. American health care, whatever its defects, is today unimaginably complex. What the Democrats are trying to do isn't just difficult. It's impossible.

According to data compiled by Hoover's business research from the U.S. Census, the health-care industry consists of 340,650 separate establishments employing 5,508,926 people. I leave it to a mathematician to calculate the number of possible economic relationships this would produce every day, much less annually .

We have 512,000 physicians and surgeons, 2.2 million registered nurses and a galaxy of different jobs orbiting around them. Some 36% of these are in individual physicians' offices.

One of the jewels of this collection of professionals, which the politicians say is "failing" us, is the U.S. medical-device industry. It has come a long way since the days of "The Clinic of Dr. Gross" in Thomas Eakins's famous painting.

There are 8,616 separate medical-device companies in the U.S., employing 359,065 people. Within the device industry, its two largest categories are electronic and precision equipment and surgical appliances. These are the wizards of American medicine.

The president says the special interests oppose his bill. But to pay for the bill, Congress would levy a $2 billion annual tax on the medical-device industry, which ardently opposes the legislation.

Let's pick a state. How about suddenly famous Massachusetts. The Massachusetts Medical Device Industry Council lists more than 220 companies as primary members. They have weird names like Aeris, ExtruMed, Bioxcell and WunderThink. Yet the Democrats are agog that Massachusetts voted Scott Brown into the Senate.

Harvard Medical School Dean Jeffrey Flier said of the health-care bill in these pages recently that "our capacity to innovate and develop new therapies would suffer most of all." And that's the high-minded criticism of the bill. Down at the level of simple retail politics what you see are tens of thousands of separate health and medical interests that understandably are in motion because of this bill's determination to change everything in American health care.

The president and his health-care advisers are giving philosopher kings a bad name. Only people who have reduced American health care to rows and columns of data in academic studies would think it possible to remake this incredibly sophisticated organism as easily as rebooting a spreadsheet.

You can't do it.

Meanwhile, press reports this week also noted that Mr. Obama's "comprehensive climate bill" is being down-sized to something that can pass Congress. Same problem.

Barack Obama is 48 years old, a "young" president. But in a sense, he is an old 48-year-old. The House leadership, the committee chairmen leading his agenda, are old guys from the 1960s and '70s. The so-called progressive Democrats who make up his core base are essentially a labor movement stuck in a one-size-fits everything industrial model from the 1930s.

It is a revealing irony that the other big story this week is the phenomenal steady success of Apple's iPhone, the result of a basic platform opening itself to a zillion application companies. Probably 90% of those tiny app firms voted for Barack Obama, whose idea of how the world actually works could not be less like their own.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's suggestion that Mr. Obama start over is better advice than he knows. Refashioning America's terrific health-care industry from basic platforms might even be exciting. That won't happen. The Democrats will ride their, and Mr. Obama's, 70-year-old national-entitlement dream straight to November, and over the cliff.

SOURCE

[David]

Democrats quietly working to resuscitate healthcare overhaul
While the focus shifts to legislation on jobs, party leaders are taking advantage of a cooling-off period to strategize, seek a new compromise and improve the public's opinion of the legislation.

SOURCE

[David]

Libs say pass the Obamacare bill and to heck with what their constituents feel.

Health Care: Git 'Er Done!

01 Feb 2010 12:06 pm
Last week, Jonathan Chait responded to me, arguing that Democrats have already taken all the political hit they're going to from passing health care, since each house voted for a bill. Of course, if Chait is right, then Democrats should probably do it--at least, if you think that democracy should put zero weight on the actual opinions of those slack-jawed rubes in the electorate. But this logic seems highly questionable to me.

Who are you more likely to leave: the spouse who makes a pass at another woman, and then thinks the better of it, or the spouse who goes through with it? Maybe you'll leave them either way. But it does not follow that they are better off going through with it. I don't think it is actually true that trying to pass a bill people hate, and then thinking the better of it because it turns out the electorate hates it, is no different from trying to pass a bill people hate, finding out that they really, really hate it, and then ignoring them and pushing it through anyway.

Moreover, I am sort of amazed that anyone does think this. The Republicans suffered a crushing electoral defeat after failing to pass Social Security reform. But raise your hand if you think that their electoral prospects would have been better in 2006 had they managed to ram through a bill that was polling in the mid thirties? Okay, Karl, put your hand down. The rest of us realize that no matter how bad 2006 was, it could have been worse. And would have been, had the AARP been stalking the GOP with murder in its heart.

This applies equally to Clinton's reversal in 1994. Yes, he lost a bunch of seats. He could have lost more. I find little evidence that the public prefers parties who do things they actively oppose, to parties that "can't get anything done".

I am similarly underwhelmed by the notion that once we've passed the bill, it will somehow be easier to sell "what's in it." There is lots of information about what is in the House and Senate bills, but the public has clearly not consumed that information. Why are they going to magically become more wonkish after it passes?

I find it easier to make the counterargument--that in districts where the thing polls moderately well, it's easier to make up pleasant characteristics for a bill that never passed, and then complain that Republican obstructionism prevented us from realizing the dream. Whatever emerged from a Senate + reconciliation strategy will almost certainly be uglier than either the House or the Senate bills on their own.

Indulge me for a moment, and say the bill passes, and that it polls where it is, or slightly worse, by next fall. That's hardly a crazy supposition, considering the further deals that will have to be cut to make it pass, and the fact that Republicans will happily make procedural hay about using reconciliation.

Are Democratic candidates going to be out there campaigning on their awesome new health care bill? Hardly. In most districts, their opponents are going to be campaigning against it, and Democrats will defensively be saying that, well, you know, it's not really that bad. At least if it doesn't pass, they can claim that they were actually voting to advance towards some never-never bill that was going to emerge from conference.

There is nothing good you can say about an actual bill that you couldn't say about a bill that you voted for, but didn't pass. It's true that this is going to make campaigns hard next fall. But at least now Democrats can say that they thought the better of it. What's their excuse if they pass it?

It's true that if it fails, it will be subject to "lengthy, painful postmortem coverage detailing its flaws and mistakes". But you know who reads such coverage? Me and Jonathan Chait, and we already have pretty strong opinions. If it passes, it will also be subject to lengthy, painful postmortem coverage in the nation's "Your Money" columns. As a veteran of reading those columns, I am pretty sure they are going to focus heavily on the fact that starting in 2014, you will be required to buy health insurance, or pay a hefty fine to the IRS. It will also mention the subsidies, and so forth. But the very unpopular mandate is going to loom large, because that is, for the sort of people who read "Your Money" columns, one of the most crucial pieces of information.

Finally, as they say in grief counseling, "Time is the great healer." Passing HCR at this point would take place in what, March? Moving it three months closer in peoples' angry memories. And meanwhile, taking up legislative time and energy from the kinds of popular things that legislators like to pass in election years in order to sweeten their prospects.

I'm just not seeing it. Of course, a pundit's opinion about this tends to coincide pretty neatly with their opinion about the proposed reform bills, so take that for what it's worth.


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[David]

Categories: Miscellany
O'Donnell: Reform is dead

Carrie and I have a story out today that looks at the parallels between the health care reform effort in 1994 and now. For the piece, I talked to Lawrence O'Donnell, who argued that reform is dead even though Democrats won't admit it.

The former Democratic Hill staffer turned MSNBC talker sounded off on the Democratic leadership, the process, and the spin. Here's the expanded write up of the interview:

Lawrence O’Donnell, the Democratic Senate Finance Committee staff director during the ’93-’94 health care debate, said we’re now witnessing reform’s death throes – and Democrats know it. The party will not be able to pass another reform bill through the Senate, period.

“Pelosi said that, ‘We don’t have the votes for passing the Senate bill’ and that should have just ended it. Any discussion of another scenario is juvenile,” he said. “It’s ridiculous.”

Democrats knew they lost reform with the Massachusetts election and some of them like Rep. Barney Frank essentially said so. “The first reaction to the Massachusetts election was the honest reaction,” O’Donnell said. Frank later walked back his comments.

But since Election Night, he said, Democrats have moved into “full bluff mode.”

“We’re absolutely in full fake cheerleading mode. I think Nancy Pelosi has absolutely no moves left. I think she knows that now. I think Harry Reid knows that. And that’s why they don’t bring it up,” he said. “They had a Senate leadership press conference (Thursday) and it was as if (reporters) were asking about World War I” when they asked about reform.

O’Donnell attributes the theatrics to the need to deal with a liberal base that will go bonkers if Democrats quit on reform. And the cue cards are nothing new. He pointed to Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer’s statements during the fall that the Senate would pass the public option even though “he’s smart enough to know they were never going to get it.”

“No one who went on television was free to say anything realistic,” he said.

In 1994, Senate Democrats brought a health reform bill to the floor that Republicans successfully picked apart with targeted amendments that made Democratic no-votes politically impossible. After about a week, Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell pulled the bill from the floor saying they would tackle it again after recess, O’Donnell said.

When they returned, Democratic senators huddled for weeks in backroom meetings, struggling to find a workable alternative. Some of the attempts, he said, were genuine while others were cynical smokescreens only designed to demonstrate forward progress. After four or five weeks, the effort was abandoned as Democrats geared up for the mid-term elections.

This time, Democratic leaders are publicly acknowledging that they can’t see the way forward.

“I’ve never heard leadership admit publicly to being so lost,” O’Donnell said. “In ’94, we never admitted we didn’t know how to proceed after we crashed and burned in the Senate. We kept up a much better mirage.”

Not to mention that these are the same people who spent all of 2009 arguing that reform had to be passed quickly, no later than the end of the year. Now, they’re arguing reform is in a 7th inning stretch and will be finished by end of this year, O’Donnell said.

“They were right the first time,” he said. “There’s no such thing as ‘Let’s take a pause in legislating so that we can gain momentum on it.’ It’s insulting.”

A reconciliation bill won’t work, O’Donnell said. When people talk about its 51-vote threshold they’re forgetting that is just the final vote. Every day the bill is on the floor it will face 60-vote procedural hurdles. For instance, should Republicans challenge a provision’s inclusion and get a favorable ruling from the parliamentarian, without 60 votes, Democrats will be unable to overturn it – leading to a bill that looks more like Swiss cheese than health reform.

SOURCE

[David]

Obama admits health care overhaul may die on Hill

By ERICA WERNER, Associated Press Writer


WASHINGTON – No, maybe he can't. President Barack Obama, who insisted he would succeed where other presidents had failed to fix the nation's health care system, now concedes the effort may die in Congress.

The president's newly conflicting signals could frustrate Democratic lawmakers who are hungry for guidance from the White House as they try to salvage the effort to extend coverage to millions of uninsured Americans and hold down spiraling medical costs. Obama's comments Thursday night came hours after Republican Scott Brown was sworn in to replace the late Edward M. Kennedy, leaving Democrats without their filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, and Obama's signature health legislation with no clear path forward.

"I think it's very important for us to have a methodical, open process over the next several weeks, and then let's go ahead and make a decision," Obama said at a Democratic National Committee fundraiser.

"And it may be that ... if Congress decides we're not going to do it, even after all the facts are laid out, all the options are clear, then the American people can make a judgment as to whether this Congress has done the right thing for them or not," the president said. "And that's how democracy works. There will be elections coming up, and they'll be able to make a determination and register their concerns."

It was a shift in tone for the issue the "Yes we can" candidate campaigned on and made the centerpiece of his domestic agenda last year. In a speech to a joint session of Congress in September, Obama declared: "I am not the first president to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last. ... Here and now we will meet history's test."

Sweeping health legislation to extend medical coverage to more than 30 million uninsured Americans passed the House and Senate last year and was on the verge of completion — though there were still disagreements between the two houses — before Brown's upset victory last month in a special election in Massachusetts. Since then it has been in limbo, and Obama has not publicly offered specifics to help lawmakers move forward. Congressional aides felt his remarks Thursday did not clarify matters.

"The next step is what I announced at the State of the Union, which is to call on our Republican friends to present their ideas. What I'd like to do is have a meeting whereby I'm sitting with the Republicans, sitting with the Democrats, sitting with health care experts, and let's just go through these bills. ... And then I think that we've got to go ahead and move forward on a vote," Obama said Thursday shortly after a White House meeting with Democratic

congressional leaders that produced no apparent progress on health care.
"I think we should be very deliberate, take our time. We're going to be moving a jobs package forward over the next several weeks; that's the thing that's most urgent right now in the minds of Americans all across the country."
"Here's the key, is to not let the moment slip away," Obama also said.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters Friday that there was no meeting set for the president to talk over health care strategy with Republican and Democratic lawmakers. The GOP has shown more interest in opposing Democrats on the issue than in working with them.

Bipartisan congressional leaders are planning to join Obama at the White House on Tuesday, but Gibbs reiterated that the meeting will be centered on how to create jobs and boost the economy. Gibbs said White House officials are "still working with Capitol Hill on the best way forward" on health care.
Rank-and-file Democrats are eager for their leaders to settle on a strategy by the end of next week, after which lawmakers will return to their states for a weeklong recess during which they're sure to face questions from constituents. The health legislation has become unpopular with voters and a political drag in a midterm election year.

Don Stewart, spokesman for Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said Friday that the White House has not requested a sit-down on health care with Republicans.

"The president wants to start over on health care? Sen. McConnell's been saying that for months," said Stewart.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sought momentum in a speech Friday to Democratic Party activists meeting in Washington. "Standing together and working together, we will pass health care reform for the American people," said Pelosi, D-Calif.

"But recognize your role in this. We can do all the inside maneuvering and legislating and the rest, but without the outside mobilization, without your participation, nothing really great or good can happen."

Ralph Neas of the liberal National Coalition on Health Care issued a stern warning to the White House after learning of Obama's remarks.

"The time has come for more forceful presidential leadership," Neas said. Obama must explain more clearly how his health care provisions would help average Americans and must give clearer guidance to Congress, he said.
A number of Democratic lawmakers and liberal groups believe the only way to enact a worthwhile health care package is to have House Democrats hold their noses and vote for a bill the Senate passed on Christmas Eve with no GOP help. It has many provisions that House members don't like, such as a tax on high-cost health insurance plans, and they would insist that senators also pass legislation to change some of them using a controversial procedure not subject to Republican filibusters.

Some party activists saw Obama's remarks as a signal that he's pulling back from that idea. Others said he may simply be making a last overture to Republicans before using the muscular partisan strategy in the Senate.
Anne Kim, of the centrist group Third Way, saw the remarks as an acknowledgment that the White House and congressional Democrats must cool down the health care debate and regain public trust about the process being used.

"They have a better shot of passing health care reform eventually by taking it off the front burner," said Kim.
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