Democrats squash GOP efforts to delay healthcare bill as key vote looms
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The Senate resumed its debate on healthcare overhaul this afternoon, as Democrats beat back Republican efforts to stall a crucial vote scheduled for late tonight.
Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) tried to put aside the new Democratic healthcare bill, technically an amendment, by offering his own amendments. But Democrats shot down that effort, derided by Sen. Max Baucus of Montana as a stunt.
“This amendment,” said Barrasso of his proposals, “simply keeps the president’s words. Democrats ought to be embracing all of these amendments.”
Baucus, chairman of the Finance Committee and one of the floor managers for the bill, said no.
“For the fourth time today, I object,” Baucus said.
All told, Baucus prevented five amendments from coming to the floor, noting each time that the GOP knew it was carrying out a stunt designed to delay the proceedings rather to get a better healthcare bill.
“We have a bill to be voted on on Monday morning, 1 a.m.,” Barrasso said, adding Democrats wanted to vote in the middle of the night because they were “scared’ to let the American people know what is in it.
The Senate is poised to vote at 1 a.m. local time on the first cloture effort, a procedural move to shut down any filibuster by Republicans. It is the first real test of whether Democrats have the needed 60 votes they say they have to pass the bill by Christmas.
The best hope for a Republican vote on healthcare officially evaporated today when Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine) said she could not vote for the bill.
“Having been fully immersed in this issue for this entire year and as the only Republican to vote for health reform in the Finance Committee, I deeply regret that I cannot support the pending Senate legislation as it currently stands, given my continued concerns with the measure and an artificial and arbitrary deadline of completing the bill before Christmas that is shortchanging the process on this monumental and trans-generational effort,” she said in a statement.
Snowe said that she met with President Obama on Saturday in the Oval Office, but that the meeting did not get her to change her mind about opposing the bill.
“As I pledged to the president in an Oval Office meeting Saturday afternoon, I couldn’t agree more that reform is an imperative, and I will continue my constructive efforts to forge effective, common-sense healthcare reform as the process moves into a House-Senate conference,” she said.
After the test vote early Monday morning, there will be other procedural votes as the Democrats move to a Christmas Eve passage of the bill.
The actual merit of the bill has been debated for weeks, though the current version was made public only on Saturday. Democrats argue that Republicans were invited to help craft the measure, but Republicans respond that their efforts were thwarted.
After the expected passage this week, the Senate and the House must reconcile their different versions in a conference whose report goes back to the chambers to be passed again. After that, it is sent to Obama for his signature.
Today, Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), chairman of the Budget Committee, warned that the final conference report must be close to the Senate bill or Democrats will not be able to hold their 60 votes together.
His remarks on “Fox News Sunday” were aimed at the so-called public option. The House bill includes such a provision, but the Senate bill does not because Democrats had to drop any compromise to placate Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), who caucuses with Democrats.
In lieu of a public option, the Senate bill would create an insurance exchange where consumers could shop for coverage. Americans would be required to purchase insurance, with subsidies to help pay for it.
-- Michael Muskal and Noam N. Levey
twitter.com/LATimesmuskal
