Obama Prods Top Democrats to Pass Health-Care as Momentum Slows

Sky News

By Laura Litvan
uly 14 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama is pressing top Democratic lawmakers to move forward on overhauling the U.S. health-care system amid signs momentum for the legislation is slowing.

Obama summoned Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer to the White House yesterday to push for action before Congress takes its August break.

“We are going to do health care before we leave,” Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said at the Capitol following the meeting.

Congressional Democrats have been urging the president to get more involved in the negotiations, with lawmakers debating over how to pay for a plan likely to cost more than $1 trillion over the next decade and how big a role the government should play in insurance. Some Senate Democrats have said they may not be able to meet the August deadline.

Lawmakers said they felt greater urgency after the White House meeting, with Baucus saying “there was the strongest commitment I’ve yet seen” to get the bill passed.

“There’s no question that the president is prepared to use whatever political capital he has to make this work,” Rangel told reporters. “He wants a bill.”

Conflict Ahead

Obama has said the legislation is his top domestic priority and wants the House and Senate to get a bill to his desk for his signature by October. Conflicts between the House and Senate may get in the way of that timetable.

House Democrats today are scheduled to propose a $540 billion surtax over 10 years on Americans who earn more than $280,000 as part of broader legislation to revamp the health- care system. The Senate’s No. 2 Democrat, Richard Durbin of Illinois, said yesterday his chamber was unlikely to accept that.

Obama, who yesterday acknowledged the difficulty in passing a bill, said the administration and Congress are closer “than we’ve ever been” to crafting the legislation.

“For those naysayers and cynics who think that this is not going to happen, don’t bet against us,” he said at the White House. “We are going to make this thing happen because the American people desperately need it.”

Timetable Stands

Administration spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama wants the House and Senate to wrap up their bills before the recess to allow enough time for a final version to be hammered out when lawmakers return.

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad said July 10 that while both parties are making progress, Democrats probably won’t reach Obama’s goal of getting the bill through the full Senate before Congress’s monthlong August recess.

The Finance Committee will approve the overhaul plan by early August, Conrad, a North Dakota Democrat and member of the panel, predicted in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt.”

Democrats in the Senate are working to draft legislation that at least some Republicans can support, though Republican leaders are signaling they probably won’t go along. Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander, the No. 3 Senate Republican leader, said yesterday that Democrats should scrap the ideas they are examining in that chamber and explore a pared-down measure.

‘Start Over’

“We should start over, that’s my advice,” Alexander told reporters. “We should start over at the other end, start with the 250 million who already have health insurance and make sure they can afford it.”

Finance panel Chairman Baucus is under pressure from other Democrats to curb his efforts to reach out to Republicans and drop plans to tax the most-expensive employer-provided health plans, a levy opposed by Democratic-leaning labor unions.

While House leaders will unveil their legislation today, they were forced to delay a draft bill last week that drew fire from the White House and dozens of their own members.

Pelosi, a California Democrat, said talks among Democrats will continue as the legislation moves forward, and she continues to push for House passage before the recess.

“It is our plan to introduce the legislation tomorrow,” Pelosi said at a press conference before the White House meeting yesterday. She defended the surtax on high-income earners, saying it is intended to make sure “that middle-income people in our country are not touched” by levies to finance health- care overhaul.

Durbin’s Approach

Durbin, the Senate’s chief Democratic vote counter, said in an interview on MSNBC yesterday that the Senate would probably take a “more conservative approach” to raising tax revenue.

Asked earlier if he planned to press ahead in light of the comments by Durbin, Rangel told reporters, “Durbin has left the House of Representatives,” referring to the senator’s 1983-87 stint in the House.

The surtax makes the most sense because “that’s where the votes are,” said Rangel, a New York Democrat.

A surtax of 1 percent would apply to incomes over $280,000 for individuals and $350,000 for couples, Rangel said last week. Higher rates would take effect when incomes reach $400,000 and $800,000 for individuals and $500,000 and $1 million for couples, he said.