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Reid faces coalition challenge
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Photo by The Associated Press
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, seen in a file photo, has the problem of keeping Democrats united as the Senate is to start debate today on health care legislation.
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THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Updated: Apr. 10, 2012 | 10:07 a.m.
WASHINGTON -- The 60 votes aren't there any more.
With the Senate set to begin debate today on an overhaul of the nation's health care system, the all-hands-on-deck Democratic coalition that allowed the bill to advance is fracturing. Yet majority Democrats will need 60 votes again to finish.
Some Democratic senators say they will jump ship from the bill without tighter restrictions on abortion coverage. Others say they will go unless a government plan to compete with private insurance companies gets tossed overboard. Such concessions would enrage liberals, the heart and soul of the party.
No clear course exists for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to steer legislation through Congress to President Barack Obama. You can't make history unless you reach 60 votes, and don't count on Republicans helping him.
But Reid is determined to avoid being remembered as another Democrat who tried and failed to make health care access for the middle class a part of America's social safety net.
"Generation after generation has called on us to fix this broken system," he said at a recent Capitol Hill rally. "We're now closer than ever to getting it done."
His bill includes $848 billion over 10 years to expand coverage to most of those now uninsured. It would ban insurance industry practices such as denying coverage or charging higher premiums because of someone's poor health. Those who now have the hardest time getting coverage, the self-employed and small businesses, could buy a policy in a new insurance market, with government subsidies for many. Older people would get better prescription coverage.
Most people covered by big employers would gain more protections without major changes. One exception would be those with high-cost insurance plans, whose premiums could rise because of a tax on insurers issuing the coverage.
The public is ambivalent about the Democrats' legislation. While 58 percent want elected officials to tackle health care now, about half of those supporters said they do not like what they are hearing about the plans, according to a new Kaiser Family Foundation poll.
The Senate debate risks alienating more people because much of the discussion probably will revolve around divisive issues that preoccupy lawmakers.
"A large portion of the debate will be spent on issues that aren't important to the workability of health reform," said Paul Ginsburg, president of the Center for Studying Health System Change.
The debate should start off modestly, with each side offering one amendment. No votes are scheduled today.
But with more than 40 senators on the two committees that originated the bill, many more amendments are expected. Some likely subjects are limits on malpractice lawsuits, consumer choice, affordability, minority health and drug prices.
Reid wants to finish by Christmas; he might not get to.
He is hoping that Democrats will stick together on procedural matters, for which Senate rules require 60 votes to advance. That would allow for different views to be heard on the underlying questions. But such an accommodation might not always be possible.
For example, the National Right to Life to Committee says unless there are big changes, it will count the procedural motion to allow a final up-or-down vote on the legislation as tantamount to a vote on abortion.
Of the many issues senators have to weigh, abortion funding and the option of a government insurance plan promise to be the most difficult.
On abortion, no compromise seems possible. On the public plan, a deal might yet be had.
The House adopted strict limits on abortion funding as the price for the support of anti-abortion Democrats. Abortion rights supporters are backing Reid's approach, which tries to preserve coverage for abortion while stipulating that federal dollars might not be used except in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother. Catholic bishops say they cannot accept that because it would let federally subsidized plans cover abortion.
It might be easier to find a middle ground on the issue of a public health plan to compete against private insurers, though Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent, said Sunday he would be "very reluctant" to support legislation without "a strong public option."
Reid's bill would create a national plan but give states the choice of opting out. In any event, the Congressional Budget Office now estimates that the government would not be the bare-knuckles competitor insurers had feared but a relatively minor player in the market.
Several moderate Democrats have served notice they cannot support Reid's approach. The lone Republican to vote for the Senate bill in committee, Olympia Snowe of Maine, has said she could accept a public plan if insurers are given one last chance to deliver lower premiums in a competitive market. Combining Snowe's "trigger" with Reid's "opt-out" might be the answer.
If that is the case, it still would have to pass a final test: 60 votes.
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Harry will figure it out. I mean, according to his TV commercial he had to hitch hike for 40 miles a day just to get to school.
I'm told Harry regularly wrestled bears that tried to break in to his family's outhouse. And when the mob tried to kill him, Harry stood up to them and put all of their heads in a vise.
Surely if Harry could do all that, oh yeah, and save City Center and convince us that he created jobs while Nevada suffers through the 2nd worst unemployment rate in the country, Harry can buy enough votes to get healthcare passed.
I WANT A HEALTH CARE PLAN LIKE THE ILLEGALS. GO TO ANY HOSPITAL EMERGENCY ROOM, GET THE SERVICES, AND HAND THE BILL TO THE TAXPAYERS.
Harry Reid is promoting a government run ponzi scheme. You can dress it up with carefully chosen labels (health care) and mumbo jumbo debatable benefits, but it's still a ponzi scheme.