House Health Bill: Obama Calls Holdouts
WASHINGTON — House Democrats have cleared an impasse over abortion that has been holding up a vote on sweeping health care legislation.
A vote is expected on Saturday – after President Barack Obama makes a late morning trip to the Capitol to make one final pitch for the legislation.
According to Rep. Bart Stupak of Michigan, he and other abortion opponents will be given a chance to insert tougher abortion restrictions into the legislation during debate on the House floor.
The leadership hopes that no matter how that vote turns out, Democrats will then unite to give the health care bill a majority over unanimous Republican opposition.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
WASHINGTON (AP) – Short on votes, House Democratic leaders offered fresh concessions Friday night to anti-abortion lawmakers and worked to ease the concerns of Hispanic holdouts as they struggled to round up the support needed to pass sweeping health care legislation.
President Barack Obama lobbied by phone to save his top domestic priority, an expansion of coverage that Democrats have sought for more than a half-century.
"We're very close" to having enough votes to prevail, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland said in a midday assessment, although he added a scheduled Saturday vote could slip by a day or two and sought to pin the blame on possible Republican delaying tactics.
"Nice try, Rep. Hoyer, but you can't blame Republicans when the fact is you just don't have the votes," shot back Antonia Ferrier, spokeswoman for the GOP leader, Rep. John Boehner of Ohio.
Hours later, Democrats were still trying to get them.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi presided over late-night meetings with Democratic abortion foes, whose votes were critical to the bill's fate, then with supporters of abortion rights, who are among the health legislation's biggest advocates in the House.
It was not clear precisely what changes were under discussion.
In general, abortion opponents want to outlaw pregnancy-ending services under a government insurance option envisioned in the legislation, except in instances of rape, incest or when the life of the mother is at risk. Additionally, they want strict limits on abortion coverages within a so-called nationwide insurance exchange where private firms would sell policies.
Abortion rights' supporters generally want to permit coverage as long as individuals use their own money rather than federal subsidies designed to help defray the cost of insurance they could not otherwise afford.
"I think we have a fundamental disagreement in this issue. That's a reality," California Rep. Henry Waxman, a supporter of abortion rights, said after hours of closed-door talks on the issue.
Aides to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops also participated in the discussions, after the organization wrote lawmakers it would oppose the legislation without changes to eliminate a "fundamental flaw" on abortion.
In a struggle that combined the fate of President Barack Obama's top domestic priority and a 2010 campaign issue, bipartisanship was not an option.
GOP leaders boasted that all 177 House Republicans stood ready to oppose the $1.2 trillion bill, which would create a new federally supervised insurance marketplace where the uninsured could purchase coverage.
Consumers would have the option of picking a government-run plan, the most hotly contested item in the legislation and the basis for the Republican claim that Democrats were planning a government takeover of the insurance industry.
Democrats said their bill was designed to spread coverage to millions who lack it, ban insurance industry practices such as denying coverage on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions and restrain the growth of health care spending nationally. The Congressional Budget Office said that if enacted, the measure would extend coverage to 96 percent of all eligible Americans within 10 years.
Obama arranged to visit the Capitol complex on Saturday to make one final pitch to fellow Democrats for the measure. He and others in his administration spent part of the day lobbying intensely for its passage.
Rep. Jason Altmire, a second-term Democrat from western Pennsylvania, said he received calls during the day from the president, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Education Secretary Arne Duncan. Their message was "this is a historic moment. You don't want to end up with nothing," he said.
Altmire added his callers emphasized the legislation would change once it left the House, but if it's defeated now the drive to enact sweeping changes would be over for the foreseeable future. He said he remained undecided on his vote.
Several Democrats have already announced their opposition, most of them moderate to conservative members of the so-called Blue Dog Coalition.
Democrats hold 258 seats in the House and can afford 40 defections and still wind up with 218, a majority if all lawmakers vote.
The White House issued a statement of support for the measure, saying it "meets the president's criteria for health insurance reform: It assures that all Americans have access to quality, affordable health care that is there when they need it and does so without adding a dime to the deficit."
Federal law currently prohibits the use of federal funds to pay for abortions except in the case of rape, incest of situations in which the life of the mother is in danger. That left unresolved whether individuals would be permitted to use their own funds to buy insurance coverage for the procedure, either in the federally backed insurance exchange envisioned under the legislation or in the government coverage option.
A compromise proposal backed by Rep. Brad Ellsworth, D-Ind., would allow it, so long as abortions weren't paid for from federal funds used to subsidize insurance policies bought by lower-income individuals and families.
While that was enough to satisfy some, other abortion foes objected, backed by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and Democrats weighed possible concessions that could satisfy them without losing votes from abortion rights Democrats.
The controversy surrounding illegal immigrants remains "a work in progress," Rep. Nydia Velazquez, a New Yorker and chairwoman of the Hispanic Caucus, said after a midday meeting in Pelosi's office.
As drafted, the legislation permits illegal immigrants to purchase coverage with their own money inside the insurance exchange that would be created – a provision that the 23-member Hispanic Caucus wants retained in any final compromise that reaches Obama's desk.
One lawmaker who attended the session, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the private talks, said members of the Hispanic Caucus sought and received assurances from Pelosi that she and the leadership would support them as the bill made its way through the House and ultimately to the president's desk. But this lawmaker said the speaker was not able to get a pledge in return that the Hispanics would all vote for the bill regardless of how their issue was ultimately settled.
Despite the uncertainty, Hispanic lawmakers generally have a strong incentive to support the legislation. According to the Census Bureau, nearly 31 percent of Hispanics are uninsured, roughly double the rate of 15 percent for the U.S. population as a whole.
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Associated Press writers Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Ken Thomas and Erica Werner contributed to this report.
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DAVID ESPO and RICARDO ALSONSO-ZALDIVAR | 11/ 6/09 11:56 PM |