Democrats get closer to agreement on health care package, but obstacles remain
WASHINGTON (MCT) — Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill worked throughout the day Thursday to settle lingering intraparty disagreements over abortion, federal insurance subsidies and other issues — seeking agreement on the finishing touches for a health care package they hope to send President Barack Obama before the end of the month.
But senior Democrats acknowledged that they were not ready to move forward, and could miss a tentative deadline for a first vote next week.
“It’s not done yet and that’s an understatement,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., told reporters at the Capitol.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said she wanted to give her members “at least one week” to review the package before they vote on it. “It may take longer,” she said after House Democrats met behind closed door for two hours with Nancy-Ann DeParle, head of the White House Office of Health Reform.
Democratic leaders believe that the House will have to vote first on the health care bill approved by the Senate last year without trying to change it. Leaders then plan to use a process known as budget reconciliation to push a package of changes sought by House Democrats through the House and Senate.
Because budget reconciliation measures cannot be filibustered under Senate rules, Democrats could move the package through the Senate with 51 votes instead of the 60 usually needed to cut off debate.
Democrats in the House and Senate have largely agreed on the basic shape of the reconciliation package, which parallels the health care blueprint outlined by Obama last month.
And many Democrats are eager to finish the debate. “I think everybody understands we need to move on. We’ve got other things we’ve got to do,” said Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., president of the Democratic freshman class in the House. “This is our last best chance.”
The health care package is expected to boost subsidies for low- and moderate-income Americans who will be required to buy health insurance. It will scale back a new tax on high-end “Cadillac” health plans, which was a key part of the Senate bill.
It will phase out a gap in Medicare’s drug coverage, and it will provide additional aid to states to help them expand their Medicaid programs for the poor, while eliminating special assistance for Nebraska that was included in the Senate bill but stirred a storm of criticism.
But Democratic officials were still trying to assess the final cost of the changes, which are being analyzed by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
And tensions remain around some issues such as abortion, with a group of conservative House Democrats threatening to oppose the healthcare legislation unless party leaders take steps to toughen restrictions on federal funding for insurance coverage of the procedure. Democratic leaders believe budget rules preclude them from including abortion language in the reconciliation package.
Some Democrats are now also pushing to include an unrelated measure in the package that would limit the role of private banks in the federal student loan program. Some Democrats back the idea because they fear the initiative — a key part of Obama’s education agenda — will be slowed or killed by opposition from banks who stand to lose generous federal subsidies.
“Senators have a clear choice here: They can either continue to send tens of billions of dollars in wasteful subsidies to banks — or they can start to invest that money directly in students,” said Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., the author of the student aid bill in the House.
At the White House, Obama continued his efforts to persuade rank and file Democrats to back the health care legislation.
Thursday, he met with members of the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. Several Latino lawmakers are unhappy about a provision in the Senate health care bill that would effectively prohibit many undocumented immigrants from buying health insurance with their own money.
