Senate support is coalescing around a compromise health care bill that strips out a public insurance option cherished by the president and liberal members of Congress.
The bill may be the only one that can overcome objections from moderates who could block legislation in the Senate. But it would open a new fight in the more-liberal House, where a national health plan is front and center in the stalled legislation backed by Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
A bipartisan group of six senators on the Senate Finance Committee has been working for days behind closed doors in an effort to strike a deal that can attract some GOP lawmakers and shore up support from wavering moderate Democrats who worry that a government-run plan will destroy the private insurance industry.
The six senators are leaning on a proposal to create privately run insurance cooperatives that would be generated in each state.
“It is still under discussion how it would be structured,” said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., one of the six negotiators. “It could be state-based with the ability to regionalize it. If someone would be able to put together a national co-op, we’d be open to that.”
Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., a moderate who meets regularly with more than a dozen other centrist Senate Democrats, was open to the co-op plan and said he supported the idea of resorting to a public option that would only be enacted “as a fallback provision” if insurance companies do not reduce premiums.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., would not say whether he supported a cooperative, but he hinted it may be the only solution to passing a health care reform bill in the Senate this year.
“I have a responsibility to get a bill on the Senate floor that will get 60 votes, so we can proceed to it,” Reid said. “That’s my No. 1 responsibility, and there are times when I have to set aside my personal preferences for the good of the Senate and I think the
country.”
Democratic leaders plan to hold lengthy meetings with Democratic senators to explain to them the contents of both Senate bills, “so that we know what to discuss during the August recess,” Reid said.
Reid added he was not concerned that momentum to pass the bill would be lost during the summer break, as many Republicans contend.
“Why should we be concerned that people are going to have an opportunity to study it for a few days?” he asked.
In the House, meanwhile, prospects dimmed for a pre-recess vote. Pelosi had held open the possibility of yanking the bill out of the Energy and Commerce Committee, where lawmakers have been at an impasse and forcing a floor vote.
But Republicans said they had gotten word Tuesday from majority aides that they were preparing to leave town Friday without a floor vote.
