Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced that he cannot meet President Barack Obama’s August deadline for health care legislation, leaving open the prospect that an already embattled effort will die in the summer heat.
Democrats, unable to muster enough support among lawmakers in their own party for sweeping health care reform legislation, pulled the plug on plans to vote on a health care reform bill in each chamber before all 535 lawmakers scatter for the monthlong August recess. It came just 15 hours after Obama reaffirmed his support for an August deadline.
“It’s better to have a product based on quality and thoughtfulness rather than trying to ram something through,” Reid said, promising to take up the bill first thing in the fall.
A health care reform bill has also stalled in the House, where Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., wouldn’t commit to a vote before the House adjourns in two weeks, as had been planned. Though she said she is “more confident than ever,” that an accord can be reached.
Democrats had clung to the August deadline, fearing that if they leave town without passing a bill, lawmakers would return in September even less inclined to vote for a bill than they are now.
“Certainly that is one of many considerations,” conceded Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., a key negotiator.
White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel is coming to the Capitol to meet behind closed doors in Pelosi’s office with a group of fiscally conservative Democratic moderates who have banded together to block the bill from clearing a key committee. The group has a litany of complaints, including the House bill’s $1 trillion cost in addition to issues concerning Medicare reimbursement rates in rural areas.
In the Senate, lawmakers were awaiting a bill from the Senate Finance Committee which has been negotiating for weeks with a bipartisan group of six senators on a national insurance cooperative plan.
Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., is struggling to maintain support. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, who had been involved in the negotiations, quit the talks this week because he could not agree with the proposals.
“Even the co-op plan would not have worked the way it is written,” Hatch told The Examiner. Hatch and other Republicans have said they would back an insurance cooperative if it is not run by the government.
Baucus also got an earful Thursday from Finance Committee Democrats who have been excluded from the talks.
“I think the chair was a little bit surprised by some of the strength of feeling in the meeting,” Sen. Jay Rockerfeller, D-W.Va., said.
Reid said Thursday that he expects Baucus to at least have a bill drafted from the committee before the Senate leaves on Aug. 7, but negotiators were less certain.
“It certainly could be done, but there are a lot of considerations,” Conrad said. “Is that the best thing to do, given the complexity?”
