Democrats hunt for healthcare reform votes

Democrats do not have a firm grip on the votes needed to pass sweeping healthcare reform legislation in the House of Representatives, one House leader admitted on Sunday.

But the White House insisted that its reform efforts were “in the final chapter”.

Barack Obama has given Democrats a March 18 deadline for the House to pass the Senate version of a healthcare reform bill before he leaves on a trip to Asia, leading to a frenzy of arm-twisting and vote tallying on Capitol Hill.

With previous deadlines missed, veteran Democrats are warning that the legislation must be completed before the Easter recess to avoid a repeat of last summer’s “town hall” protests that almost sunk the healthcare bill.

“I believe it will pass. Do we have a mortal lock? No. Because people are still looking at some of the changes that are being made,” Chris Van Hollen, one of the Democratic leaders in the House, admitted on CNN on Sunday.

The House is shaping up to be a key battlefield in the healthcare fight after Democrats lost their 60-seat super-majority in the Senate.

With not a single Republican supporting the reform effort, the only option for Democrats now is to have the House pass the Senate version of the bill, then for both chambers to pass a series of fixes to take into consideration the demands of House lawmakers.

But Democratic leaders in the House are struggling to get the 216 votes they need to pass the Senate bill. As many as 12 conservative Democrats who voted in favour of the House bill because it included tough new restrictions on abortion funding are now threatening to vote against the Senate version, which is less restrictive. The House bill passed by 220 to 215 so Democrats have few votes to spare.

“This is going to be a discussion and we are going to be engaged in that dialogue for some time until we get it done,” said Mr Van Hollen, chairman of the Democratic congressional campaign committee and the fifth-ranking Democrat in the House.

Kathleen Sebelius, Mr Obama's health secretary, said on Sunday it was time for Congress to “get the job done”.

“The bill has passed the House, the bill has passed the Senate with a super-majority. We have comprehensive legislation for the first time,” Ms Sebelius told ABC on Sunday. “We are in the final chapter, mostly because the American people are desperate.”

Tom Daschle, the former Democratic Senate majority leader, underlined the urgency of getting healthcare passed before the Easter congressional recess in less than three weeks.

“There really is a life to these legislative projects and we’ve already extended beyond the normal life [of healthcare] given the array of other challenges and issues we have to face,” he told the Financial Times in its View From DC video series.

“Right now Democrats are back on the offensive and I think they have got to seize it and do the most with it.”

Mr Daschle warned that failure to pass healthcare reform could lead to a repeat of the anti-reform campaigning that almost sunk the bill in the summer.

“There is a lot of fear of the unknown and it’s pretty easy to generate fear,” he said. “Every time we do [try healthcare reform], the same predictions and the same dire consequences are announced.”

Mr Daschle underlined that it was important also to clear space after Easter for the Obama administration to tackle jobs, financial regulatory reform and legislation to address climate change.

“We have got to perform – we have got to show that we can govern,” he said. “We’ve got to focus on jobs and do as much to recreate the kind of economy that would allow more job creation.”