Obama Prods Democrats on Health Care
In rare visit, cites historic opportunity
By Lisa Wangsness, The Boston Globe, www.boston.com
WASHINGTON – President Obama made a rare Sunday visit to Capitol Hill yesterday, imploring Senate Democrats in a closed-door session to resolve their disagreements on health care and finish work on the sweeping legislation.
Democrats worked into the evening, and although they reported some progress, they failed to reach agreement on one of the most vexing sources of discord: whether to establish a government-run health insurance option. Democrats also remain divided over whether to restrict abortion coverage in the new insurance markets, or “exchanges,’’ that the proposal would establish.
Ten lawmakers – five liberals and five moderates – met in hopes of finding agreement on whether to create a public health insurance program, and if so, how to structure it. Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, emerged from that meeting to say the group found significant common ground.
But Senator Ben Nelson, a moderate Democrat from Nebraska, said there was a great deal more work to be done. “There is certainly interest in trying to find significant common ground,’’ he said. “It’s a tall challenge to try to reach that.’’
The Senate – which usually doesn’t meet Fridays or Mondays, let alone Saturdays and Sundays – worked through the weekend in hopes of accelerating the health care debate. Harry Reid, the majority leader, wants to conclude it by Christmas.
A senior Democratic aide said leaders planned to begin filing motions later this week to end debate on a series of controversial amendments, motions that will each require 30 hours of debate and 60 votes under Senate rules. The House passed its version of the bill a month ago.
In his 45-minute midafternoon session with Democrats, President Obama asked the lawmakers to rise above festering conflicts over the bill’s details, appealing instead to the senators’ sense of history, according to senators who attended.
Obama cast the health care bill as one of a series of important legislative responses to extraordinary problems facing the nation this year, and exhorted the caucus to meet the expectations of the American people and the needs of the uninsured, they said.
“It would be very hard to have listened to the president’s presentation and not have been persuaded of the historic importance of what’s being discussed here,’’ said Senator Kent Conrad, Democrat of North Dakota and chairman of the Budget Committee. “It was a powerful speech.’’
Senator Joseph Lieberman, an independent of Connecticut, said Obama did not once mention the public option.
“He talked about the cost-containment provisions, the insurance market reforms, ’’ said Lieberman. “He said, ‘These are historic accomplishments, the most significant social legislation in decades, so don’t lose it.’ “
The current bill would establish a national government-run health plan, allowing states to drop out of it if they choose. But Nelson, Lieberman, and two other senators have vowed to block the bill from passing if that provision is not removed.
Although liberals say a government-run plan is essential to pressuring private insurers to hold down costs, some conservative Democrats and most Republicans see it as a back door to a government-run health system, or fear taxpayers could wind up bailing out an unsuccessful public insurance operation.
The latest compromise, under discussion yesterday, would have the US Office of Personnel Management, which runs the Federal Employees’ Health Benefits Program, negotiate with insurers in the federal program to make national nonprofit plans available in each state for individuals and small businesses to purchase through the new insurance exchanges. The exchanges would be modeled after the Massachusetts Health Insurance Connector Authority.
But a true government-run plan is the liberals’ top priority, and it’s not clear that they are ready to go so far to accommodate moderates. Nelson said yesterday that Democrats were also looking at other possible compromises, such as allowing individuals and small businesses to buy into state employee insurance plans.
The Senate will begin debating the abortion issue today.
Lawmakers on both sides of the abortion issue say they want to continue the longstanding federal prohibition on the use of federal money to pay for abortions, except in the case of rape, incest, or risk to the mother’s life. But they disagree over how to extend that policy into a new system where the government helps subsidize insurance premiums for low- and moderate-income people who can’t get affordable coverage through work.
The House last month passed an amendment to its health care bill that would prohibit any insurance plan that covers abortion from accepting people who get federal subsidies. Liberals strongly object, saying this would have the effect of limiting women’s ability to buy plans that cover abortion, even with their own money.
Nelson, who opposes abortion rights, plans to submit his proposal tomorrow; it is not expected to pass because a majority of senators favors abortion rights. But Nelson has said he will block any bill that does not satisfy his concerns on this front.
Also yesterday, senators rejected, 56 to 42, an amendment limiting the tax deductions that insurance companies take for what they pay their top executives. The measure, sponsored by Senator Blanche Lincoln, needed 60 votes.
A Republican-backed measure limiting plaintiff lawyers’ fees in medical malpractice cases was also defeated, 66 to 32.
Republicans – who are so far united in opposing a bill that they say would expand government, do little to slow the cost of health care and plunge the nation further into debt – have been working to overwhelm the bill with amendments and protracted discussion.
While Obama was speaking in a nearby room yesterday, Senator John McCain of Arizona, the 2008 Republican nominee for president, said his former opponent had not kept his campaign promises to conduct the health care discussion in an open forum and to eschew secret deals with interest groups.
He also complained that the bill contained almost none of his party’s priorities, including medical malpractice reform.
“Let’s all sit down together, Republicans and Democrats, with C-SPAN in the room and negotiate so that the American people can see what’s going on here,’’ McCain said.
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