Health Reform Vote May Hang on Senate Recess

Even as the Senate took a break from health care reform to debate crime legislation, some Democratic members Monday privately joined Republicans in calling for a delay in the health debate, according to White House and congressional sources.

The sources said that Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.) is likely to grant a recess--possibly starting this week and lasting until after the Labor Day weekend--if he can get commitments from at least 60 senators that they will vote to enact major legislation upon their return. Sixty votes would be needed to overcome any filibuster.

Many reform-minded members, however, are warning that a significant break in the health care debate would sap any remaining momentum from the drive to enact major legislation before Congress adjourns in early October.

“If we go home, health care is dead,” said Sen. Dave Durenberger (R-Minn.).

“I think he’s right,” said Sen. John D. (Jay) Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.). “I say, let’s not go home. Let’s go forward.”

Mitchell also did not budge from his public stance that the current debate over the crime bill is all the respite that the Senate will get from consideration of health reform.

But Democratic senators said Monday that the sentiment is growing for a hiatus. The Senate was to have begun a monthlong recess in mid-August, but it was canceled by Mitchell.

Senators cited several reasons for the growing clamor for a break--most notably the strong desire to return home to campaign for reelection. One-third of the Senate’s seats are up for election.

“There are also a lot of people who have made non-refundable family vacation plans and can’t afford to lose (the money),” said one senator.

Until now, only Republicans have called for a recess, led by Minority Leader Bob Dole of Kansas and Phil Gramm of Texas. Dole also told a group of friendly lobbyists during a hallway encounter Thursday that he is searching for “hard votes . . . on the (Democratic) side so we can kill the Mitchell bill and go home.”

On Sunday, Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.), appearing on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” also raised the possibility of a break.

Noting that the Senate had engaged in nearly two weeks of desultory debate on health care reform with no real progress, the Finance Committee chairman said:

“Now maybe it’s time to break and see if we can’t put together a bill that has enough of the common ingredients of the various groups to get 60 votes.”

That suggestion was said to be “gaining traction” in the Senate Monday, a top White House official said.

The House already has put off its health care debate indefinitely, with Democratic leaders there citing the delay in getting analysis of the various reform proposals from the Congressional Budget Office.

Some Democratic senators raised the possibility of a recess during a private meeting Monday and, when Mitchell was asked about it, “the look in his eyes was perplexing,” said one pro-reform senator who was there.

Various groups of senators also met in private throughout the day to discuss the latest reform proposal, offered Friday by a bipartisan group of about 20 members as an alternative to Mitchell’s bill.

The so-called “mainstream coalition” proposed a drastically stripped-down bill that would eliminate the requirement that employers pay part of their workers’ health care premiums and that would trim $400 billion from growth of Medicare and Medicaid over 10 years to generate funds to help poor people buy health insurance. It optimistically aims to achieve 95% coverage by the year 2002, which would be an improvement of about 10 percentage points.

The proposal’s goals would fall far short of those set forth by President Clinton and embraced by his congressional allies. But many of them emerged from meetings Monday praising parts of the “mainstream” proposal.

Rockefeller said he could not vote for the proposal in its present form, but added that it has “some very good parts,” such as giving priority to covering pregnant women and children.

“It keeps the process moving,” added Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) “I think we are going to grind it out.” A delay, he said, would endanger the entire effort.

But hard-line advocates of universal coverage were discouraged.

“I didn’t hear a thing about universal coverage . . . “ said Sen. Russell D. Feingold (D-Wis.). “It’s an awful long way from what we campaigned on.”

A critical issue is the extent to which the “mainstream” group is willing to make concessions. But the senators who met with the group said they could not get a clear answer on that point.

Rockefeller said he thinks Republican members of the group are willing to negotiate. “The question is, how far is their leash?”

Amid the private pressures from some Democrats for a recess, many hard-line reformers Monday vigorously opposed any such break.

“The issue is joined and I think we ought to go for it,” Sen. John Glenn (D-Ohio) said, adding: “If that means I have to change my Christmas Eve plans, then so be it.”

Times Washington Bureau Chief Jack Nelson contributed to this story.