Obama planned to meet in the Oval Office on Friday with Reid and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., who is leading a group of a half-dozen Democratic and Republican senators laboring to produce a bipartisan bill.
Even while announcing the Senate vote would be delayed, Reid said the Finance Committee would act on its portion of the bill before lawmakers' monthlong break after the first week of August.
It can't be fast enough for some of the Senate's more liberal Democrats, who are chafing over the repeated delays by the Finance Committee and grousing that they can't be expected to support whatever legislation the committee produces.
Finance Committee negotiators are looking at a bill that would not go far enough for some Democrats in embracing some liberal goals, like the new public insurance plan, that were included in legislation passed by the Senate's health committee. Finance Committee members are looking at nonprofit co-ops instead. The two measures would have to be merged.
With Polling in free fall for the president and support for his plans in general the likelihood of an Obama compromise dropping the public option in favor of co-operatives and mandates would allow the president to claim a win and advance part of his agenda. More importantly a scaled back plan would reduce the need for the massive tax increases called for by Rangel. With Democrats divided and Pelosi spouting nonsense as her caucus fractures around her it could get ugly real quick:
While Pelosi said she has "no question" that Democrats have the votes they need, she stopped short of promising the full House would act on the legislation before beginning a monthlong vacation at the end of July.
"We are waiting to see what the president says, and what the Senate will do," she said.Pelosi spoke as White House officials and Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, met with moderate and conservative Democrats who have stalled progress on the bill, demanding numerous changes as the price of their support.
Rep. Charlie Melancon, D-La., expressed unhappiness at the Speaker's words. "I've been meeting to death, so if that has been for naught until they counted votes, and just to occupy our time, I'm sorry," he said."I thought we were legitimately having conversations about writing a good health care bill for America."
Rep. Mike Ross, D-Ark., who also has been involved in days of private negotiations, said he believed the Speaker was mistaken when she said Democrats have the votes to prevail.
Separately, Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee met privately to consider changes in the legislation they pushed through last week.
If they had the votes they would pass something, anything. One of the key reasons Obama is at an impasse was his hands off approach to what type of legislation Congress writes. We saw this most disastrously with the stimulus package, that became a pork fest to reward Incumbent democrats and now this lazy policy has boomeranged on the President, from Time Magazine:
As complicated and confusing as that sounds, it is still only the beginning. If something eventually does pass the Senate, it would have to be combined with the House version to produce a final bill. Health care reform is a messy, messy process. There are 11 committees of jurisdiction, three bills, dozens of interest groups - all of which seem totally disconnected from the actual pain and treatment of patients. It's so complicated, in fact, that it can make one of the most eloquent guys on earth - Barack Obama - sound awkward, as he did at Wednesday's press conference, fumbling around with generalities and jargon. As one Senate Democratic aide said to me, "Now you know how frustrated Congress has been with the Obama Administration's lack of clarity and involvement in the process."
Wait till the fall.
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