WaPo Breaking: Pelosi rejects Senate version of health-care bill

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

BREAKING NEWS
Pelosi rejects Senate version of health-care bill

Washington Post article is online-subscription content. Can anyone get at the article and post the first few grafs here?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/

Thanks. :hi:

[flpoljunkie]

1. Here...

Pelosi says House cannot pass Senate's health-care bill without changes

By Shailagh Murray and Paul Kane

Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, January 21, 2010; 11:43 AM

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that the Senate will have to amend its version of a health-care reform bill before her chamber can pass it.

"I don't think it's possible to pass the Senate bill in the House," Pelosi told reporters after a morning meeting with her caucus. "I don't see the votes for it at this time."

Pelosi has been struggling for days to sell the Senate legislation to reluctant Democrats in order to get a health-care bill to the president's desk quickly. But moderates in her caucus have raised doubts about forging ahead without bipartisan support -- a challenge as the midterm election approaches -- while liberals rejected the Senate bill as not going far enough.

Most problematic for many House Democrats was how the Senate bill handled federal subsidies to buy health insurance, and the Senate's new excise tax on high-value policies, which could hit union households.

more...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/21/AR2010012101604.html

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

So it's really dead... this is a new political calculation

It has always been that failure constituted political disaster.

Now they have calculated that letting it die is better politics.

I have whiplash!

[flpoljunkie]

3. At least, not yet. More from Talkingpointsmemo...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi just told reporters that she does not believe she has enough votes in the House to pass the Senate health care reform bill as-is -- at least not yet.

"I don't see the votes for it at this time," Pelosi said. "The members have been very clear in our caucus about the fact that they didn't like it before it had the Nebraska provision and some of the other provisions that are unpalatable to them."

"In every meeting that we have had, there would be nothing to give me any thought that that bill could pass right now the way that it is," she said. "There isn't a market right now for proceeding with the full bill unless some big changes are made."

While she didn't say the option was dead -- "Everything is on the table," she said -- she outlined two very different options for passing a bill.

"There's a recognition that there's a foundation in that bill that's important. So one way or another those areas of agreement that we have will have to be advanced, whether it's by passing the Senate bill with any changes that can be made, or just taking pieces of it," Pelosi said.

"We have to get a bill passed -- we know that. That's a predicate that we all subscribe to."

When will that happen? Who knows!

"We're in no rush," Pelosi said.

Reporting by Brian Beutler

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/01/pelosi-there-arent-enough-votes-to-pass-the-senate-bill.php?ref=fpa

[Clio the Leo]

6. No, the Senate bill as is is dead....

... all this means is that the House wants to conference. IE: We're in the exact same place we thought we were this time last week.

The difference being Scott Brown shot our magic unicorn .... so 60 votes to end debate on the conference report may not be an option .... unless Brown votes for cloture and in so doing making himself a hero to these angry progressive voters in MA that we're always hearing about. :)

[Inuca]

11. Actually...

I think we are even closer to where we were before the MA debacle. The lovelies in the Senate (Nelson, Lieberman,..) were saying quite clearly that any significant change to the version that passed the Senate will probably mean losing their vote.

[Clio the Leo]

18. But Nelson himself backed off of his Nebraska deal. NT

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

13. I doubt they would bother sending a conference report back to the Senate to fail

So action on the House and Senate bills that passed is probably over.

Okay... now I'll try to get optimistic about the "chop it up" approach.

[timeforpeace]

20. But won't they now have to let the repukes into the conference negotiations?

[VMI Dem]

2. Thank you Nancy.

[Clio the Leo]

4. To her credit, SHE didn't reject it....

... some of members of the House did. She was on board with the plan Wednesday.

[Inuca]

7. Agree, the WP headline

is misleading

[Clio the Leo]

10. I was TRYING to get in here and post JUST her statement ...

... without any media spin so we could make our own conclusions but I wasn't fast enough. It looks BAD for those who wanted "Senate bill plus fix" but there's some hope in there too.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

14. Feel free. Duplicates are not a crime.

If you can present the matter more neatly than this discombobulated thread please do.

[Clio the Leo]

17. Sorry.... not a critique of you...

.... the whole blogosphere was going bonkers with the same reaction (which I dont think is too far off of the truth.)

But our collective cliff jumping (mine included) doesn't exactly jive with "we're not in a rush and we still have to pass a bill."

And dupes ARE poor etiquette. ;)

[Inuca]

5. Here is the MSNBC version

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34973418/ns/politics-health_care_reform/

[Clio the Leo]

8. I think "not at this time" and "yet" ... could be a key phrases...

.... we shall see.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

9. Thanks!

[Inuca]

16. I now read the article

in the link above. Pretty bad. Here are a few quotes:

Rank-and-file Democrats vented their frustration at a closed-door meeting Thursday. Emerging from the session, Rep. Michael Arcuri, D-N.Y., said: "The mega bills are dead. If we didn't see what happened Tuesday night, we have blinkers on."

Rep. Dennis Cardoza, D-Calif., said there was more support for refocusing on the health care changes with more popular appeal among American consumers.

Nearly as shaken by the Massachusetts vote were health care provider groups that have supported the Democratic effort, such as drug makers, hospitals and doctors.

While few were making public statements, industry groups that stood to gain millions of newly insured customers were worried that such potential gains were in jeopardy, according to lobbyists speaking on condition of anonymity to describe confidential conversations.

Industry groups also were worried that without a health care bill, some of the savings several of them had agreed to contribute — such as lower Medicare reimbursements — might be used for separate congressional efforts this year to reduce the soaring deficit.

[JVS]

12. Go Nancy!

[high density]

15. Wow, so we're going from the senate bill is the best thing ever to the senate bill is dead

I am so amazed that a WH full of people that built Obama into such a great presidential candidate is now bumbling so much in their pursuit of his agenda. I'm completely unimpressed and I'm really getting tired of people like Axlerod and Gibbs blowing smoke at us.

[AlinPA]

19. Almost a whole year burned up on health care. Sounds like they dropped it. What's next?

[RememberWellstone]

21. Dumb ass

President Obama should have kicked her to the curb months ago, seriously. What a moron.

[Phx_Dem]

22. It's not her. She's willing to pass it. It's the assholes in the progressive

caucus, according to what I heard earlier on XM POTUS.

[LooseWilly]

23. Yay "assholes in the Progressive caucus"!!

:applause: :applause:
(I promised my progressive caucus rep's office I'd speak well of them all if they killed a mandate with no public option...)

[LooseWilly]

24. I don't think Pelosi, and other Democrats in the House, want to face the unions over a cadillac tax

Not after seeing Ted Kennedy's seat go to a tea bagger, and polls suggesting that rage over the Senate version of the bill was partly responsible.

I remember the noises made in the union halls when Kerry was running. I can only imagine the noises now. If the House were to rush to pass the Senate's cadillac tax funding plan for the reform... I could easily imagine the unions reacting with every bit as much rage as the MoveOn polls suggest happened in the Mass special election. I don't think the union leadership would be able to stop the rank and file. In fact, I don't think they'd even have it in them to try.

The Democrats would do better to just put together a small bill to make it illegal for insurance companies to drop coverage when clients actually need to use it. That was pretty much the only selling point of the Senate fiasco... so just put it out there on its own, and if the Republicans filibuster it... run on that in '10... much better than having the unions pissed off.