House Democrats Use Key Votes to Rally Support to Health Care Plan, Despite Hurdles

White House and Democrats are struggling to bring a complex, controversial bill to remake the U.S. health care system to a vote in both houses of Congress before lawmakers recess. A bill passed two key committees Friday.

FOXNews.com

Friday, July 17, 2009

House Democratic leaders tried to rally support to their health care reform bill Friday after it cleared two key committees, playing down concerns that a pair of bills might not pass through Congress by President Obama's deadline.

After working almost around-the-clock, the House Ways and Means Committee approved legislation by a 23-18 vote. A few hours later, the House Education and Labor Committee followed suit, with a 26-22 vote.

That followed a key Senate panel's party-line vote in favor of its version of the package Wednesday.

"This level of progress has never been made before," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, noting that health care legislation backers have "two more to go" -- with two more committees in the House and Senate yet to vote.

"It is so important that we've done this on our side," said Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y. "We look forward to getting this bill passed."

Lawmakers dismissed several other complications, though.

In the Senate, bipartisan negotiators ended talks for the week with no indication a deal was imminent, and a group of six Democrats and Republicans announced their opposition to "timelines which prevent us from achieving the best result."

The White House and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid are pushing for legislation to clear both houses by the August recess, but the letter said, "we believe that taking additional time to achieve a bipartisan result is critical."

The letter was signed by Democratic Sens. Ben Nelson of Nebraska; Ron Wyden of Oregon and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana; as well as Maine Republican Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe and independent Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut.

And Friday's votes came after the top budget scorekeeper hit health care reform authors with a damaging assessment of the plans on the table.

Douglas Elmendorf, head of the Congressional Budget Office, told Senate lawmakers Thursday that the legislation does not include the "fundamental changes" necessary to rein in federal health spending. If anything, he said, the legislation would increase costs.

That blunt assessment emboldened Republican critics of the plan, ticked off Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and could ultimately send some lawmakers back to the drawing board to rewrite key details of health care reform.

"Get it right before you get anything done," Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., told FOX News. "I think this should not be rushed."

In addition to Republicans, some moderate Democrats in the House are also going on record with complaints about the proposal, whose price tag could reach $1.5 trillion over 10 years. The proposal is paid for in large part by a tax on the wealthy, but some senators and Elmendorf are still advocating a controversial tax on employer-provided health care benefits.

Obama on Wednesday insisted that Congress make progress on health care, hailing as a "milestone" one Senate panel's vote to approve health care legislation -- the first committee to do so. He said Congress must pass a bill out of the House and Senate before the August recess.

The last time the president set a hard and fast deadline, with the $787 billion stimulus, Congress narrowly met his timetable. This time, it's unclear whether he will get his wish.

But House Democrats on Friday expressed elation at the progress that had been made, insisting they were on track.

"These next pivotal months will finally be our chance to deliver and we will," House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said.

"We are on our schedule," Pelosi said. "We are in very excellent shape. This is the legislative process."

The Ways and Means Committee voted Friday to approve the tax provisions of the House bill, which would impose $544 billion in new taxes over the next decade on families making more than $350,000 a year. Other committees worked on separate parts of a bill that would cost roughly $1.5 trillion.

Pelosi has vowed to pass the bill by the end of the month.

But Montana Sen. Max Baucus, one of the key Democrats at work on the issue, said Obama "is not helping us" with his opposition to a new tax on health benefits.

Senate Democratic leaders recently shot down the tax approach, but Baucus, who chairs the Finance Committee, still favors it as a way to pay for a health overhaul.

At its core, the new effort involves a requirement for insurance companies to offer policies to all willing buyers, and bars them from charging higher premiums on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions. Legislation would rely on government subsidies to make insurance more available for lower-income individuals and families, and use tax increases as well as cuts in current government health programs to pick up the cost.

There was good news for Pelosi and the administration in hearing rooms not far away.

Republicans on the House Education and Labor Committee failed on party-line votes to delete major portions of the bill, including provisions for the government to offer insurance coverage and create a new way of shopping for health plans through a purchasing exchange.

Republicans were no more successful in the House Ways and Means Committee, where Democrats shot down amendments to eliminate the government insurance option and delete requirements for employers to provide health care. Republicans also failed on amendments to limit medical malpractice awards, and to prevent the government insurance plan from covering abortions. All the votes were largely along party lines.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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