Former President Bill Clinton told Senate Democrats to get behind the health care reform bill even if it is not exactly what they want.
Clinton’s pep talk came as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., told reporters he plans to put the health care bill on the floor next week and win passage by Christmas.
Clinton told Democrats it is their responsibility as the majority party to get a bill passed and talked of “how important it was to move this year,” Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said.
“It’s not important to be perfect,” Clinton said to reporters, recounting his half-hour speech to a closed-door caucus meeting. “The worst thing to do is nothing. That was my message today.”
Democrats are far from agreeing on health care reform legislation and weeks of debate and hundreds of amendments stand between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s still-unseen proposal and a final bill. Reid said to expect a cost analysis of his health care proposal to be provided “pretty soon” and suggested debate might have to start without one.
The party is divided over everything from cost to language addressing abortion funding and the differences are only likely to become more pronounced once a bill moves the floor.
“Clinton’s message was to recognize that we are going to have to deal with an imperfect situation and take it as a guideline or a starting point,” said Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J.
Lautenberg said Clinton told Democrats that history is full of examples of legislation “that was not perfect and we’ve had an opportunity to fix them along the way.”
Some Democrats are pushing for the bill to include language that mirrors a provision in the House bill blocking the use of federal funds to pay for abortion.
The Senate Finance Committee earlier this year rejected similar language but it will likely make a return as an amendment to the bill.
Senators including Robert Casey, D-Pa., and Ben Nelson, D-Neb., said they favored such an amendment.
“The bill that goes to the floor will look a lot different when it comes off the floor,” Casey said.
“The legislation should consist of having a prohibition of spending federal money on abortion,” Nelson said, adding that the House language, “is one way of doing it.”
While Reid is under pressure to begin debate on the bill, moving it to the floor ahead of the CBO cost analysis could backfire by angering moderate Democrats who have insisted on having enough time to read the entire bill and understand its cost.
And Republicans, who will likely make every effort to block the legislation, could read the entire bill on the Senate floor.
“Reading the bill would take a while,” Republican Policy Committee Chairman John Thune, D-S.D., said. “I’d not be surprised if that were employed as a tactic.”
