Healthcare reform can't wait a generation

The end game at hand, President Barack Obama took command Wednesday of one final attempt by Democrats to enact bitterly contested health care legislation, calling for an “up or down vote” within weeks under rules denying Republicans the ability to kill the bill with mere talk.

Appearing before a White House audience of invited guests, many of them wearing white medical coats, Obama firmly rejected calls from Republicans to draft new legislation from scratch. “I don’t see how another year of negotiations would help. Moreover, the insurance companies aren’t starting over,” the president said, referring to a recent round of announced premium increases affecting millions who purchase individual coverage.

While Obama said he wanted action within a few weeks, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., seemed to hint a final outcome could take far longer. “We remain committed to this effort and we’ll use every option available to deliver meaningful reform this year,” he said.

The results will affect nearly every American, mandating major changes in the ways they receive and pay for health care or leaving in place current systems that leave tens of millions with no coverage and many others dissatisfied with what they do get. With Republicans united in opposition, there is no certainty about the outcome in Congress – or even that Democrats will go along with changes Obama urged on Wednesday in what he described as a bipartisan gesture.

via Obama Health Care Speech: It’s Time To Act.

Sen. McConnell (R-KY) Sen. Reid (D-NV)

After a weather related delay Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is just about ready to go with his jobs package. But with another storm threatening to shut down Congress yet again tomorrow, a week-long recess set to kick off this weekend, and no promise from the GOP not to filibuster the bill, Reid is threatening to keep the Senate in session through the weekend to get the bill finished.

“The issue before the Senate and the decision I have to make after speaking to the Republican leader is what we do when we come back here on Thursday,” Reid said on the floor this afternoon.

We’ll have an intervening day. I would rather not be in session tomorrow if, in fact, we have to file cloture on that package that I just talked about. I have told everyone that what I think would be the appropriate way to do is to get on that bill and to have some amendments on both sides, and I hope we can do that. We really need to finish the bill this week. I would hope that we can do that in a reasonable time. It appears from what I have been able to determine is that the storm will end sometime early tomorrow evening. The problem is the streets in the D.C. area are pretty difficult so we would have to make sure that everyone has time Thursday to get here. There are some people who live in the suburbs when they are in Washington, and so we have to make sure that they have time to get here. Anyway, we’re working on these issues. And then we have the President’s Day recess. I hope we don’t have to work into the weekend to complete that. It’s really difficult to put all this stuff over.

Get It Done: Reid Threatens Weekend Session If GOP Filibusters Just-Completed Jobs Bill | TPMDC.

Ready to play

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid used to consider recess appointments “an end run around the Senate and the Constitution” — so much so that he kept the chamber open during breaks to prevent President George W. Bush from making any more of them.

But with a Democrat in the White House, and Republicans blocking executive branch nominees, Reid and his allies are starting to sing a different tune.

Reid said last week that he’s “tried hard” to avoid the need for President Barack Obama to make recess appointments, but he added: “What alternative do we have?

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) has placed a blanket hold on all of Obama’s pending executive branch nominees — a senatorial prerogative that leaves Democrats unable to confirm nominees without first getting 60 votes on time-consuming cloture motions.

A senior Democratic aide calls Shelby’s move a “perversion of senatorial courtesy” that “makes recess appointments fair game.”

Still discussing - no action

Laying out the way forward on health care reform Tuesday, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) confirmed that Congress and the White House are discussing the use of reconciliation to “correct” the Senate legislation with a supplemental bill that would require only a simple majority in the upper chamber.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) avoided using that particular parliamentary tactic for health care last year, partly because reconciliation bars the inclusion of policy provisions that don’t affect overall cost. But since the Senate has already passed the fundamental health reform bill, reconciliation could be used to fast-track a bill that simply amends cost provisions in the existing legislation — if the House votes to pass the main Senate bill as is. The alternative, crafting a compromise bill in conference, would require 60 votes in the Senate again.

The reconciliation proposal has gained serious attention in the week since Senate Democrats lost their filibuster-proof supermajority with the election of Scott Brown to Ted Kennedy’s former seat. At his weekly press briefing Tuesday, Hoyer said the use of a supplemental health reform bill is “certainly” one of the top four options being considered.

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Hoyer: House And Senate Discussing Reconciliation For Health Care.

Editor’s Note: I do not hold a lot of stock in Politico usually but the plain truth is no matter if HCR is really dead it sure appears that way. Robert Gibbs has said the President has a full plate and HCR is on the back burner; both leaders in Congress say they do not know how to move forward. It is such a shame that all three just do not want to admit the real truth which is they are all scared after the MA election of Tbaggers.

I am afraid I made the wrong choice in the Democratic primary; maybe Hillary was the right choice. She certainly would have more hands on than Obama has been.

From Politico:

Health care reform teetered on the brink of collapse Thursday as House and Senate leaders struggled to coalesce around a strategy to rescue the plan, in the face of growing pessimism among lawmakers that the president’s top priority can survive.

The legislative landscape was filled with obstacles: House Democrats won’t pass the Senate bill. Senate Democrats don’t want to start from scratch just to appease the House. And the White House still isn’t telling Congress how to fix the problem.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) both tried to put a good face on the obvious chaos on Thursday, promising to press on.

“We have to get a bill passed,” Pelosi told reporters. “We know that.”

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said, “No way is it dead, because it’s so important for the country. And we will find a way to pass [it].”

But for the first time in the yearlong push, Democratic aides — and even some members — finally acknowledged privately that the fear of failure was real. And Congress recessed for the weekend without an obvious path forward as rank-and-file Democrats started splintering in different directions.

Democrats struggled all year to maintain a coalition in support of health care reform without any GOP votes. Republican Scott Brown’s improbable win in Massachusetts on Tuesday now looks like it has the potential to end that almost-impossible balancing act.

This post-Massachusetts confusion raises the stakes for President Barack Obama’s first official State of the Union address next week, which some now believe must be a last-ditch effort to get health care finished.

On Thursday, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), a fierce proponent of health reform, said it wasn’t clear how the Senate should press ahead.

“Obviously, you cannot just proceed as if nothing happened, because something very significant happened,” Schumer said, referring to Brown’s victory. “There is a strong view in both caucuses that we want to do some good things in health care, and the question is how? How much and how quickly?”

Yet again our Dem leaders have no idea what they are doing or where they are going!

From Huff Post:

Don’t bet on the House rubber-stamping the weaker Senate health care reform bill, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Thursday.

“I don’t think it’s possible to pass the Senate bill in the House,” Pelosi told reporters at her weekly press conference. “I don’t see the votes for it at this time.”

But, said Pelosi, there are a number of different options that the House is considering, including passing the Senate bill along with a secondary bill making patchwork improvements that implement the compromise reached by the chambers.

“There’s a recognition that there’s a foundation in that bill that’s important,” she said. “So one way or another, those areas of agreement that we have will have to be advanced, whether it’s by passing the Senate bill with any changes that can be made, or just taking” some elements of it.

“We have to get a bill passed. We know that. That’s a predicate that we all subscribe to,” she said.

The House has a full year to vote on the Senate package before it expires.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Tuesday that the Senate bill would be “better than nothing,” but the House only passed its own bill by a five-vote margin back in November. Earlier in the week, some Democrats were talking about trying to pass health reform in the two-week window before Senator-elect Scott Brown (R-Mass.) is seated, but President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Wednesday that will not happen.

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Pelosi: Votes Aren’t There For Senate Health Care Bill.

Who Should Go?

Michael Steele called on Sunday for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to step down for racially insensitive comments, even as the RNC Chairman brushed aside talk that he should resign for using an epithet of his own.

Appearing on “Fox News Sunday”, Steele condemned Reid for calling then-presidential candidate Barack Obama “light-skinned” and “with no Negro dialect” in private conversations during the campaign. The remarks, Steele stressed, were just as contemptuous as those made by former Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.), who once praised Strom Thurmond’s segregationist presidential candidacy. And, as such, Reid (like Lott) should be forced to resign from his leadership post.

“I think he should,” said Steele. “There is a standard where Democrats think they can say these things and apologize when it comes from the mouth of their own. But if it comes from anyone else, it’s racism. It’s either racist or it’s not. And it’s inappropriate, absolutely. So if the standard is the one we saw with Trent Lott as leader at the time, then I think this absolutely falls in that category here. … Remember, this is the same leader who just a few weeks ago was talking about health care in the context of slavery. Clearly he is out of touch.”

The follow-up question to Steele’s statement was obvious from the onset. The RNC Chairman, this past week, had been chastised by members of both parties for using the phrase “Honest Injun” to tout the Republican party’s platform. Combined with other gaffes, was this too grounds for resignation?

“No, absolutely not,” he said. “Why should I Chris [Wallace]? I’m pushing the ball. I’m raising the money. I’m winning elections. I have got the base fired up.”

“If [the comment] is [offensive] I apologize for it,” he added. “I wasn’t intending to say a racial slur at all. The reality is that’s not the same as what we were talking about before.”

Michael Steele: Harry Reid Should Resign Over Racial Comments, I Shouldn’t.

But, in fits and starts, and after several near-stalls, they’ve done it. Today, 60 senators will vote to end the last of several filibusters, and tomorrow morning, more than 50 will vote to pass a single, historic piece of legislation. Time for a victory lap, right? Hardly.

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Quelling The Drama: Democrats Mum On House-Senate Health Care Negotiations | TPMDC.