Weiner: 'This is a 51 vote plan, not a 60 vote plan'
- 02/22/10 01:50 PM ET
President Obama's new healthcare proposal will likely gain only Democratic support, and that's a good thing, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) said today."[T]his bill is a 51 vote plan and not a 60 vote plan – that is great news," Weiner said in a statement. "Democrats wasted a year bowing to the altar of Olympia Snowe, Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson and it got us nowhere."
Weiner's comments suggest that Obama hopes to pass his plan using budget reconciliation, which would only require 51 votes. Democrats probably couldn't pass an entire piece of legislation using that tactic, but could use it to push through some of smaller modifications that Obama announced today.
Nevertheless, Weiner said he was disappointed Obama didn't include a public option or a broader, national insurance exchange.
"These concessions to Republicans are in the hopes of winning their support," Weiner said in a statement. "This will simply not happen. We need to stop bargaining against ourselves. Who are we making concessions to? Republicans have shown over and over again that they have no interest in real reform."
Obama Won't Drop Potential Use Of Reconciliation On Health Care
President Obama wants to keep the option of using reconciliation to pass health care reform despite calls from Republican lawmakers that he agree to drop the parliamentary maneuver as a "good faith" gesture" before their bipartisan health care summit.White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs said on Tuesday that Republicans coming to the West Wing for the much-anticipated February 25 meeting would be better off arriving "without preconditions." Asked whether Obama would commit to not using reconciliation -- which would allow aspects of health care legislation to be considered in the Senate by an up-or-down vote -- Gibbs replied:
The president is not going to eliminate things based on preconditions. And if that's one of their preconditions, the president doesn't agree to limiting the way we are going to discuss this.The day before, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) penned a letter to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel expressing their reluctance to participate in the health care summit and asking that ground rules be set before talks begin. Among those rules: agreeing to not use reconciliation to make amendments to the Senate health care bill.
"Eliminating the possibility of reconciliation would represent an important show of good faith to Republicans and the American people," the two GOP leaders wrote.
Both Boehner and Cantor pushed for Obama to scrap the legislative language in its entirety and start the process over from scratch.
During a surprise appearance before the White House press corps, President Obama was asked whether he could live with bipartisanship by this definition. He could not.
"I am going to be starting from scratch in the sense that I will be open to any ideas that help promote these goals," he said. "What I will not do, what I don't think makes sense... will be another year of partisan wrangling around these issues, another six months, or eight months, or nine months worth of hearings in every single committee in the House and Senate in which there is a lot of posturing... Let's get the relevant parties together... My hope is we can find enough overlap that we can say, 'This is the right way to move forward," even if we don't get every single idea that I want."
A leading House Democrat predicted on Tuesday that not a single Republican lawmaker will end up supporting health care legislation despite President Obama's efforts at bipartisan outreach.
Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), who chairs the House Education Committee and played an integral role in crafting health care reform in his chamber, told the Huffington Post that he believes GOP leadership is trying to use the upcoming White House summit to effectively kill any prospects for legislative success. Pointing to requests by House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) that the president scrap the bills that have already passed the House and the Senate in favor of starting from scratch, the congressman remarked:
"It is fatal to this process and that is why they are proposing it. They are hoping that we will not be successful. The fact is, speaking for the House, each of us had very long markups. The Republicans fully participated. They offered amendments. Some amendments were accepted in different committees. They were offered a chance to have a substitute on the floor. They offered a substitute. The CBO told us that if we did it their way we would have ten million more uninsured people in this country at the end of ten years than we have today. That doesn't sound like an answer that meets the needs of the American public. And I think the president is being very generous. He is offering them an opportunity and we will see what happens from that."
Pressed as to whether he thought Obama would actually be successful in getting even one Republican vote for health care reform as a byproduct of bringing their voices and input into the process, Miller replied: "I'm not one who believes that that is the situation. But the president wants to make this effort and if it works, fine."
It seems fair to grant Miller the skepticism he brings to discussion of a bipartisan summit on health care reform. As the congressman notes, Republicans have long been part of the legislative process -- participating in the Gang of Six negotiations in the Senate, introducing and securing conservative amendments and successfully moving both chambers' bills away from the progressive pole. For that, Democrats earned a single GOP vote in the House -- Rep. Joseph Cao (R-La.), who has since said he will oppose the bill.
On Tuesday, President Obama told reporters, in a surprise appearance at the briefing room, that bipartisanship had to be a two-way street. Miller, like others in the House, is relaying the message that the White House should start mapping out different roads.
"[T]he idea that we would scrap the bill, the idea that we go back, basically they are asking for an expansion of the status quo health care system," he said. "This is a system that is crushing families, crushing business and crushing [the] economy, and the Republicans want to say, if we just do more of this everything will get better."
Dems Won't Commit To Having Final Bill For Health Care Summit
House Democratic leaders are refusing to commit to producing a final comprehensive piece of health care legislation to present at the much-anticipated bipartisan summit later this month.
In a conference call with reporters on Wednesday a quartet of prominent Democratic lawmakers said that progress was being made in discussions with Senate Democrats to find common ground between their two respective bills. But they refused repeated attempts to say that those negotiations will be finalized by the time the White House convenes congressional leadership on February 25.
"I don't know whether the president is going to put one particular piece of legislation on the table," said Rep. Chris Van Hollen, (D-Md.) chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "But as he has said both the House and Senate bills provide a way forward."
In the absence of a single bill to present at the summit, Democrats seem poised to offer a document of detailed principles. In addition to Van Hollen, Reps. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.) and Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) both noted on the call that there was substantial overlap between the Senate and House bills -- enough that leadership in each chamber will be comfortable with the party's presentation at the summit.
But not having a final draft presents obvious obstacles, none more dangerous than granting Republican critics a pass of sorts for not coming to the summit with a detailed plan of their own. After all, in the letter formally inviting congressional lawmakers to the Blair House summit, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel wrote that "we will post online the text of a proposed health insurance reform package," before the meeting. He then invited the GOP to do the same.
"It is the President's hope," Emanuel wrote, "that the Republican congressional leadership will also put forward their own comprehensive bill to achieve those goals and make it available online as well."
The Democrats refusal to commit to the White House suggestion indicated that the party remained hindered by internal disagreement over how to move forward with health care legislation and what that legislation should look like. Van Hollen said that the "House and Senate have come very close to reaching a final agreement in coordination with the White House."
Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), who chairs the House Education Committee and played an integral role in crafting health care reform in his chamber, told the Huffington Post that he believes GOP leadership is trying to use the upcoming White House summit to effectively kill any prospects for legislative success. Pointing to requests by House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) that the president scrap the bills that have already passed the House and the Senate in favor of starting from scratch, the congressman remarked:
"It is fatal to this process and that is why they are proposing it. They are hoping that we will not be successful. The fact is, speaking for the House, each of us had very long markups. The Republicans fully participated. They offered amendments. Some amendments were accepted in different committees. They were offered a chance to have a substitute on the floor. They offered a substitute. The CBO told us that if we did it their way we would have ten million more uninsured people in this country at the end of ten years than we have today. That doesn't sound like an answer that meets the needs of the American public. And I think the president is being very generous. He is offering them an opportunity and we will see what happens from that."
Pressed as to whether he thought Obama would actually be successful in getting even one Republican vote for health care reform as a byproduct of bringing their voices and input into the process, Miller replied: "I'm not one who believes that that is the situation. But the president wants to make this effort and if it works, fine."
It seems fair to grant Miller the skepticism he brings to discussion of a bipartisan summit on health care reform. As the congressman notes, Republicans have long been part of the legislative process -- participating in the Gang of Six negotiations in the Senate, introducing and securing conservative amendments and successfully moving both chambers' bills away from the progressive pole. For that, Democrats earned a single GOP vote in the House -- Rep. Joseph Cao (R-La.), who has since said he will oppose the bill.
On Tuesday, President Obama told reporters, in a surprise appearance at the briefing room, that bipartisanship had to be a two-way street. Miller, like others in the House, is relaying the message that the White House should start mapping out different roads.
"[T]he idea that we would scrap the bill, the idea that we go back, basically they are asking for an expansion of the status quo health care system," he said. "This is a system that is crushing families, crushing business and crushing [the] economy, and the Republicans want to say, if we just do more of this everything will get better."
Dems Won't Commit To Having Final Bill For Health Care Summit
House Democratic leaders are refusing to commit to producing a final comprehensive piece of health care legislation to present at the much-anticipated bipartisan summit later this month.
In a conference call with reporters on Wednesday a quartet of prominent Democratic lawmakers said that progress was being made in discussions with Senate Democrats to find common ground between their two respective bills. But they refused repeated attempts to say that those negotiations will be finalized by the time the White House convenes congressional leadership on February 25.
"I don't know whether the president is going to put one particular piece of legislation on the table," said Rep. Chris Van Hollen, (D-Md.) chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "But as he has said both the House and Senate bills provide a way forward."
In the absence of a single bill to present at the summit, Democrats seem poised to offer a document of detailed principles. In addition to Van Hollen, Reps. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.) and Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) both noted on the call that there was substantial overlap between the Senate and House bills -- enough that leadership in each chamber will be comfortable with the party's presentation at the summit.
But not having a final draft presents obvious obstacles, none more dangerous than granting Republican critics a pass of sorts for not coming to the summit with a detailed plan of their own. After all, in the letter formally inviting congressional lawmakers to the Blair House summit, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel wrote that "we will post online the text of a proposed health insurance reform package," before the meeting. He then invited the GOP to do the same.
"It is the President's hope," Emanuel wrote, "that the Republican congressional leadership will also put forward their own comprehensive bill to achieve those goals and make it available online as well."
The Democrats refusal to commit to the White House suggestion indicated that the party remained hindered by internal disagreement over how to move forward with health care legislation and what that legislation should look like. Van Hollen said that the "House and Senate have come very close to reaching a final agreement in coordination with the White House."
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