Democrats lack health care votes, but not bravado

By: Susan Ferrechio
Chief Congressional Correspondent, Washington Examiner
Monday, March 15, 2010

[img]http://media.washingtonexaminer.com/images/250*157/NancyPelosi.gif[/img]
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told a crowd in San Francisco that she believes passage of a bill is imminent. (AP file photo)

House Democrats this week will embark on one of the biggest political quests in recent history as they attempt to pass a massive health care bill that still lacks the 216 votes needed for passage and faces universal Republican opposition.

"No, we don't have them as of this morning," House Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-S.C., said on NBC's "Meet the Press," when asked whether the votes were there.

But Clyburn, along with Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and top White House officials made the talk show rounds to deliver the message that despite the current deficit of support, the bill will pass as early as this week.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said on "Fox News Sunday" that by next weekend, "you all will be talking about health care reform not as a presidential proposal but as something that will soon be the law of the land."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was also confident, telling a crowd in San Francisco that she believes passage of a bill is imminent.

But Pelosi and other top Democrats have refused to say when they plan to take up a bill or what provisions will be in it. House Democratic leaders are pushing for a vote as early as this week or at least before the two-week Easter recess that begins March 26.

Pelosi, Clyburn and the other Democratic leaders worked all weekend to try to persuade about a half-dozen wavering Democrats to vote for a $1 trillion health care bill passed by the Senate on Christmas Eve. Even though Democrats control 253 votes in the House, more than 40 in their party are refusing to vote for the bill because they don't like its tax on expensive insurance policies, subsidies for insurance policies that cover elective abortions, lack of cost containment and sweetheart deals for some senators.

White House senior adviser David Axelrod said on ABC's "This Week" that the final legislation would cut out some, but not all of the special deals for individual senators.

Congress intends to take up a second bill that corrects some of the provisions in the Senate bill that House members don't like, but that bill would have to be passed using a politically divisive parliamentary maneuver called budget reconciliation, which would require just 51 votes in the Senate.

Durbin, on "Meet the Press," said the Senate is working to get the House to trust it will act on reconciliation.

"When Nancy Pelosi goes before her House Democratic caucus, it will be with the solid assurance that when reconciliation comes over to the Senate side, we're going to pass it," Durbin said.

But Republicans are warning against the use of reconciliation to pass the second health care bill.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who has been working with Democrats on global warming legislation and closing down the detainee prison at Guantanamo Bay, cautioned that reconciliation, which he called "a sleazy process," could damage bipartisan efforts.

"You're going to have a hard time convincing Democrats or Republicans to do the hard things because you've poisoned the well," he said.

sferrechio@washingtonexaminer.com

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