7.27.09 | Mary Vanac

Health care reform may come down to … politics — MedCity Morning Read, July 27, 2009

WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Barack Obama needs some Republicans to buy unto his health care reform if it is to succeed, members from both political parties say, according to the Associated Press in a story published in the Chicago Tribune.

Democratic and GOP officials acknowledged Sunday that Obama’s ambitious plan would not have enough congressional votes to pass without the help of a doubtful Republican Party, members of which are almost united against the White House plan, the Associated Press said. A lack of unity among Democrats also could scuttle the president’s health care reform plans, according to the Wall Street Journal. So-called “Blue Dog” Democrats continued on Sunday to resist key elements of Obama’s plan despite pressure from party official.

A leader of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog camp said he expects any vote on the House’s health care reform legislation to have to wait until after Labor Day when Congress reconvenes after a summer break. “I think the American people want to take a closer look at this legislation. They want to feel more comfortable with it,” Rep. Jim Cooper, a Blue Dog from Tennessee, said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday, according to the Journal.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi disputed the suggestion that Blue Dogs could threaten passage of the bill. “Absolutely, positively not,” Pelosi said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “When I take this bill to the floor, it will win … We will move forward. This will happen,” according to the Journal.

Blue Dogs have emerged as a pivotal player in the national health care debate, the Journal said. The group that accounts for about one-fifth of House Democrats wants to make sure health care reform isn’t too expensive for small businesses and hopes to keep government costs down. They also don’t want private insurers to compete with a federally funded health plan, and they want to reduce the share of lower-income Americans who would receive subsidies to buy health insurance.

On the other side of the congressional aisle, Republicans are saying much the same thing as the Blue Dogs. Sensing public uneasiness about the pace and price of proposed health care reform, Republicans said the longer the delay in a vote, the more the public understands the stakes of policy that has vexed policymakers for decades, according to the Associated Press. “We could have a plan in a few weeks if the goal is not a government takeover,” Sen. Jim DeMint, a Republican from South Carolina, told the Associated Press. “We’ve never seen the government operate a plan of any kind effectively and at the budgets we talked about.”

Even though Democrat backers of reform say they have plans that won’t add to the federal deficit, it is likely the House will break for its summer recess without taking a vote, the AP said.

Meanwhile, an idea to tax insurers on their most expensive policies seems to be taking hold in the Obama White House, according to a separate story by the Wall Street Journal (subscription required). David Axelrod, senior advisor to Obama, said Sunday on “State of the Union” that the president found this idea “intriguing.” Taxing insurers rather than the health care benefits of middle-class Americans also would help the president keep a campaign promise. And the Congressional Budget Office said Saturday that a new Health Office proposed by the president to cut health care costs probably would result in no savings at all, according to the New York Times.

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