President Barack Obama said Wednesday “the stars are aligned” for health care reform, as Democratic leaders promised a House vote by the end of July.
“Too often efforts at comprehensive reform have fallen apart, due to special-interest lobbying and petty politics and the failure of all sides to come together,” Obama said. “You’re starting to see a shift in these patterns.”
With an already-loaded fiscal and public policy agenda, Obama is staking much on the health care gamble — a complex and divisive issue freighted with warring interests.
“There is a tension between wanting to do things early when Obama has a lot of popularity and political capital, versus taking the time to get a really complicated bill done,” said John Fortier, a political expert at the American Enterprise Institute.
“If he waits too long to do it — well, he is walking on air now, but he may not be walking on air come fall.”
Obama met privately with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other prominent Democratic lawmakers, who vowed swift work on the bill before their annual August recess. Obama said he wants health care reform enacted by the end of the year.
“We’re seeing now that traditional opponents of health care reform are embracing these ideas,” Obama said. “They recognize that the time is now.”
An emerging blueprint for reform would create a public health care system that individuals could buy into, with a separate option for workers to keep the private health plans provided by employers.
The idea is drawing strong opposition from insurers, who fear a low-cost public option would drive them out of business. Supporters of the plan say competition would force private companies to deliver better, lower-cost benefits.
The president’s fiscal 2010 budget includes $634 billion over 10 years as a first installment to finance reforming the system. The funding would come in part from raising taxes on wealthy Americans.
Other sources of funding could include taxing employer-provided health benefits and taxes on alcoholic beverages, sugary sodas and cigarettes.
“Republicans want to work with Democrats to make sure every American has access to quality, affordable health coverage, and we look forward to opportunities to do so,” said Michael Steel, spokesman for House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio.
“At the same time, we clearly cannot support a government takeover of health care that will raise taxes, ration care, and cause more than 100 million Americans to lose their current health coverage.”
Pushing a bill through the House on an accelerated schedule could prove a challenge for Obama, in spite of his party’s majority status. Moderate Democrats are complaining they are being locked out of the policymaking process on health care reform.
The Senate also could prove a stumbling block to comprehensive reform. Matt Mackowiak, a Republican strategist and former Senate staffer, said Obama will need help from moderate Democrats and some Republicans to pass a bill this year.
“He’s going after health care right now because he thinks he can get it done, but this issue has taken down politicians before, and I think they run the risk of middle ground voters seeing this as a major overreach,” Mackowiak said.
