House Democratic leaders concede they do not have enough support to pass President Obama’s health care package, but the party is hopeful it will come up with the 216 votes needed to pass the bill before the March 18 deadline set by the White House. But first they will have to clear a number of hurdles standing in the way of passage.
1. The Senate — Looming large in the minds of nearly every House member are the 290 or so House bills the Senate has ignored since January 2009. Many House Democrats are refusing to pass the Senate’s health care legislation without a guarantee that the Senate will take up a corrections bill using an exhaustive and potentially politically damaging parliamentary tactic that would require just 51 votes to pass it in their chamber. “There are too many deficiencies in the Senate bill for us to just go on faith,” Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., said.
2. Pro-life Democrats — Up to a dozen Democrats, led by Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., stand ready to vote against the Senate bill because of its effect on federal funding of abortion. While House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has insisted the bill does not expend taxpayer money on the procedure, Stupak and others point to provisions in the Senate bill like one that would provide funding for elective abortions by private health insurance plans that receive federal dollars. Stupak told The Examiner that Pelosi is working around the pro-life Democrats, trying to find other former “no” votes to make up the deficit, but Democratic strategist Peter Fenn said the leadership will have to find a way to win the votes of at least some pro-life Democrats. “If you lose the Stupak crowd, you are going to be in trouble,” Fenn said.
3. Fiscal moderates — As Pelosi goes fishing for new “yes” votes among the 39 Democrats who voted against the House health care bill, she may have hard time reeling anyone in. That’s because the vast majority of these lawmakers represent red districts. Seven of them won their last election by less than 5 percentage points and 14 are vulnerable freshmen. Many of these members dislike the bill’s $1 trillion cost and size. “My top concern is cost containment and delivery system reform,” Rep. Jason Altmire, D-Pa., who voted against the House health care bill, told The Examiner. “I’m going to do what’s right by my constituents and right by my district.”
4. House liberals — While it is expected that many of the 80 or so of the most liberal members of the Democratic caucus will vote for the Senate bill because it’s better than nothing, don’t rule out the possibility that at least a few of them will defect and vote down the bill because it does not include a government-run public option that was part of the House-passed version. Upon resigning from the House on Monday over sexual harassment charges, freshman Rep. Eric Massa, D-N.Y., said Democratic leaders were forcing him out because he planned to vote against the Senate bill because it did not create a European-style, single-payer system of health care delivery. “I suspect that most will fall in line and vote for it, but there may be some holdouts that we don’t know about,” said Merrill Matthews, director of the Council for Affordable Health Insurance, a research and advocacy organization.
