Democrats Still Short of Votes But Predict Health Bill Will Pass

After months of deadlines that have come and gone, White House officials and congressional leaders expressed confidence Sunday that they will get the votes they need this week to pass a comprehensive health care reform bill, but they conceded that they are not there yet.

At the same time, Republicans renewed charges that President Obama and Democratic leaders were "arrogant" and "tone deaf" in trying to push through legislation the country doesn't want, and warned that passage of the reform package would not only wreak havoc on the health care system but would be a disaster at the polls for Democrats in this year's midterm elections.

House Minority Leader John Boehner went as far as to predict that Republicans would "have a chance" at winning control of the House although he acknowledged it would be an uphill fight. "It's a steep climb, but it's doable," Boehner said on CNN's State of the Union.

To deal with the fact that Senate Democrats no longer have a veto-proof majority of 60, the Democratic plan is for the House to pass the already-approved Senate bill and send it to Obama for his signature. Then the House would send to the Senate another bill, using a procedure called budget reconciliation, containing fixes that make the Senate measure more acceptable to House Democrats. Reconciliation bills require only a simple majority enabling the Senate to avoid a filibuster, although Republicans have promised a blizzard of amendments that could slow passage there.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said on Fox News Sunday that, "I think whoever sits here this time next week, you all will be talking about health care reform not as a presidential proposal but as something that will soon be the law of the land."

That was a prediction echoed by senior White House adviser David Axelrod who said on CNN, "I think we will have the votes to pass this." Axelrod added: "Obviously, this is a struggle. Look, the lobbyists for the insurance industry have landed on Capitol Hill like locusts, and they are going to be doing everything they can in the next week to try and muscle people into voting... It's a struggle, but I believe we are moving in the right direction."

House Majority Whip James Clyburn of South Carolina said on NBC's Meet the Press that Democratic leaders don't have the votes "as of this morning" but "I'm also very confident that we will get this done."

Referring to the two-step strategy of passing the Senate bill and later a bill of fixes, Clyburn said Democrats said Democrats "have the will to do it (pass the health care legislation). They've been looking to us to create a way to do it. I think we have gotten to a place where we do have a way to do it."

Clyburn acknowledged that one obstacle was "the historic distrust that exists between the two bodies" causing concern among some rank-and-file about how certain they could be the Senate will deliver.

Clyburn said, "I think we've gotten a comfort level with each other."

However, Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, a member of the Democratic leadership, said on Fox, "We need some absolute guarantees from the Senate. We need to be absolutely assured that at least 51 senators there will support the package of changes...Whether that takes the president of the United States saying that he has conferred with 51 senators and they're all on board ...it has provide assurances to enough House members that they will follow through, because we want to change the Senate bill."

Among the "fixes" the reconciliation bill would make are removing some of the deals made in the Senate to nail down the votes of key senators, reducing the tax and so-called high-benefit "Cadillac" coverage plans, and increasing subsidies to help low-income Americans buy insurance. Van Hollen singled out the importance of removing the deals, such as the one providing extra Medicaid money for Nebraska to win over Sen. Ben Nelson's vote. Republicans and critics of the bill have had a political field day with the concessions made to wavering senators.

Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin of Illinois said on NBC, "We're in the process of actually contacting every single Democratic senator. When Nancy Pelosi goes before her House Democratic caucus it will be with the solid assurance that when reconciliation comes over to the Senate side we're going to pass it."

Republicans have sought to stoke Democratic fears about the Senate delivering on the fixes. Repeating a line he used last week, Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander said on CBS's Face the Nation, "Here's what the House Democrats are being asked to do. They're being asked by the president to hold hands, jump off a cliff and hope (Senate Majority Leader) Harry Reid catches them in the Senate, after the bill is law."

Alexander called the Democrats' insistence on pushing through the health care legislation "the most brazen act of political arrogance that I can remember since the Watergate years. Not in terms of breaking the law, but in terms of thumbing your nose at the American people and say we know you don't want it, but we're going to give it to you anyway."

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said on ABC's This Week that on health care, Obama has been "been tone deaf; he's been arrogant; and they are pushing a legislative proposal and a way to do that legislative proposal that's going to destroy the ability of this country to work together for a very long time."