Reid Fixated on Health Timing

Reidwanted to get the ball rolling on the overhaul early this week armedwith a Congressional Budget Office analysis, but because that CBO scoredidn’t come on Friday as he had hoped, Democratic aides said theMajority Leader is prepared to push back his timeline. Reid may keepthe Senate in session into the week of Thanksgiving in order toovercome one of the biggest hurdles facing the bill: producing the 60votes needed to beat back a GOP filibuster that would prevent the billfrom even being considered on the Senate floor.

Thougha few moderate Democratic Senators such as Ben Nelson (Neb.), MaryLandrieu (La.) and Blanche Lincoln (Ark.) have yet to commit tosupporting the start of the health care debate, Democratic aides saidlast week that they do not believe that any member of the 60-strongDemocratic Conference will vote to prevent the full Senate frombringing the measure to the floor.

“Weunderstand that there are people who have concerns about this bill.They’ll be able to address those concerns on the Senate floor, but thefirst step is starting debate,” one Senate Democratic leadership aidesaid. “While Senate Republicans might be OK with robbing the Americanpeople of that opportunity, we are confident Senate Democrats are not.”

Anothersenior Senate Democratic aide said fence-sitting Democrats just needsomething to point to before committing to vote down a filibuster ofthe motion to proceed. Reid cannot produce legislative language untilhe has the CBO score in hand, perhaps by Tuesday or Wednesday.

“Justeliminating the mystery of what’s in the bill will be enough to getthese moderates to ‘yes’ on the motion to proceed,” the aide said.

Thekey vote, which Reid plans to call after he receives the CBO score,would be on a motion to limit debate — or invoke cloture — on a motionto proceed to the bill. The leadership aide said Reid is working underthe presumption that he will have a CBO score “sooner rather thanlater” this week and that the Senate will be in a position to kick offdebate before Members go home for Thanksgiving.

Reidwants to get the cloture vote on the motion to proceed over with beforethe holiday because he would like to spend all three weeks beforeChristmas amending and debating the health care bill. If he has to waituntil after Thanksgiving to take the vote, the time-consumingprocedural hoops he has to jump through could delay the start of theamendment process until the second week of December.

Becauseof the additional time the CBO needs to score the bill, it remainsunclear whether Reid will heed the call of centrists such as Lincoln towait 72 hours after the CBO score is unveiled to have a vote.

“Memberswill have time to digest this bill,” said the leadership aide, whodeclined to say whether that meant there would be a three-day reviewperiod.

Butwhether to wait 72 hours is just one of Reid’s concerns as he seeks tocement Democratic votes to kill the filibuster over the next few days.

Theflap in the House over whether any new federal health insuranceprograms would fund abortions has now spilled over into the Senate,with the handful of anti-abortion-rights Democrats calling for languagethat would prevent private insurers from covering the procedure forwomen receiving federal subsidies and abortion-rights supportersthreatening to oppose the bill if that House-passed provision isincluded.

Senateaides indicated that Democratic leaders have not yet decided how toaddress the issue. The bill that passed the Senate Finance Committeeincluded a ban on federal funds being used for abortions but did not goso far as to prohibit private insurers from offering a benefit tosubsidized women.

Theleadership aide said that decision would be a topic of discussion forSenators this week as Reid, who opposes abortion rights, looks forconsensus on whether to put stronger abortion language in the bill orallow Senators to fight it out on the floor.

Butthe issue still could be a threat to Reid’s plan to bring up the billthis week. Nelson has said he may vote to filibuster the motion toproceed: “If it isn’t clear that government money is not to be used tofund abortions, I won’t vote for it.”

Reidhas also been exploring other options for paying for the bill andkeeping the total price tag under $900 billion, as President BarackObama has called for. Unions have balked at the Finance bill’s plan totax high-cost, or “Cadillac,” health care plans, and liberals areconcerned that the measure does not offer sufficient subsidies tomiddle-income Americans who may not be able to afford insurance underthe bill’s individual mandate.

“Allparties knew that we were going to have to strengthen the piece oflegislation that came out of Finance,” the leadership aide said. “Weneed to keep our options open on available funding sources as wecontinue to put forth the strongest bill possible that is affordablefor middle-class Americans.”

Theaide confirmed an Associated Press report that Reid has consideredincreasing payroll taxes on individuals with incomes over $250,000 ayear but said no decisions have been made.

Evenwith the tweaks Reid is seeking to satisfy various constituencies inthe Democratic caucus, the outcome on the floor is far from certain.Sen. Joe Lieberman (ID-Conn.), who caucuses with Democrats, has said hewill vote to bring up the bill while repeatedly threatening tofilibuster to close off debate if the measure still includes a publicinsurance option. Reid has said the bill he plans to bring to the floorwould contain a public option with an opt-out provision for the states.Other centrists such as Nelson have similar concerns about the publicoption but have not said whether they would filibuster the measure overit.

Evenso, the leadership aide cautioned that Senators who have seeminglydrawn lines in the sand over one issue or another may see thingsdifferently after three or four weeks of debate.

“This is all academic until you start having votes on the floor,” the aide said.