Nov 20, 2009 6:00 pm US/Pacific
Moderate Dems Swayed Ahead Of Health Bill Vote
WASHINGTON (CBS News) ―
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Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana is one of the moderate Democratic senators that both advocates and opponents of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's bill are putting pressure on to decide on a vote. (File)
Karen Bleier/AFP/Getty Images
With the first critical vote for the Senate health care bill slated for Saturday night, both advocates and opponents of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's bill are putting pressure on the few key Democratic senators who may or may not hold up the measure.
On Saturday at 8 p.m., the Senate will vote on whether or not to even begin debate on the measure. Reid needs at least 60 senators to vote in favor of debate, and Republicans plan on uniformly voting against moving forward. A handful of conservative Democrats have expressed reservations about supporting the bill, for various reasons, and two have not yet disclosed whether they will vote in favor of moving the debate forward on Saturday: Sens. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) and Mary Landrieu (D-La.).
However, Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), another conservative Democrat whose vote was in play, announced today he would vote in favor of beginning debate. He maintained, though, that he will vote with Republicans to filibuster the bill after debating it, if it is not altered to his liking.
"The Senate should start trying to fix a health care system that costs too much and delivers too little for Nebraskans," Nelson said in a statement. Saturday's vote, he said, "is only to begin debate and an opportunity to make improvements. If you don't like a bill why block your own opportunity to amend it?"
Nelson and his fellow centrist Democrats have been feeling the heat from all sides. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) e-mailed his supporters this morning, Politico reports, urging them to call Nelson's office and ask him to vote against the health care debate tomorrow. Meanwhile, the Republican National Committee sent out an e-mail with the subject "Your Call Can Make the Difference," also urging people to call Nelson and Lincoln and ask them to vote against Saturday's motion.
"Two Democrat Senators - Ben Nelson (D-NE) and Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) - are critically important to defeating Saturday's vote," the e-mail says.
Meanwhile, the Democratic National Committee is also sending out an e-mail, asking supporters to call Reid's office to say, "Thank you for introducing a strong bill that helps all Americans."
Progressive groups that were earlier putting pressure on Reid to include a government-run health insurance plan, or "public option," in his health care bill are also thanking him now for doing so. The Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) last month ran an ad in Las Vegas called "Is Harry Reid Strong Enough?" that featured a local nurse named Lee Slaughter.
PCC is now releasing a robocall in which Slaughter says Reid "shocked the political world by being so bold on this issue" of the public option. "If you want to join me in thanking Senator Reid, and letting him know that we'll stand with him as long as he keeps fighting for a public option, please press one on your keypad." Listeners are then given the opportunity to thank Reid and join PCCC's ongoing public option campaign.
Reid has certainly engaged in a great deal of horsetrading to try to secure 60 votes for his bill. He has, for instance, worked to modify the bill to please moderate Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) by providing the state of Louisiana with between $100 million and $300 million in Medicaid financing for 2011. Coincidentally, the Times-Picayune reports, will host a fundraiser in New Orleans next month for Reid.
Liberal groups are also pressuring certain senators to keep the public option in the bill, presuming debate on the bill ever gets started. Some moderates may try to amend the bill during debate and replace the public option with a so-called "trigger" plan, which would enact a public option after a certain number of years if the private industry failed to meet certain standards. MoveOn.org is challenging this idea with a new ad in Lincoln's state of Arkansas and in Maine, home of Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe, who initially proposed the trigger idea.
Suitably opaque, Section 2006 of the health care bill takes up only a few dozen lines in a sweeping health care bill that runs to 2,074 pages and mentions neither Sen. Landrieu nor her state of Louisiana.
But the section's purpose is indisputable: to deliver $100 million or more in federal funds to the state. And in the process clear the way for one of three moderate Democratic fence-sitters — Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas are the others — to help propel the legislation past its initial hurdle in a crucial Saturday vote.
Nelson issued a statement Friday ending any lingering public suspense about his intentions. "The Senate should start trying to fix a health care system that costs too much and delivers too little for Nebraskans," he said, adding his decision should not be seen as an indication of how he will vote on the legislation itself.
Nelson had been publicly signaling his intentions for more than a week, and his words presumably came as no surprise to Reid or the White House, which issued a statement Friday saying the bill "provides the necessary health reforms that the administration seeks."
This sort of political minuet can be delicate, as shown when the Senate's second-ranking Democrat, Dick Durbin of Illinois, said earlier on Friday that Lincoln had already confided to Reid how she planned to vote.
Republicans, eager to scuttle the bill — and defeat Lincoln in 2010 — instantly accused the two-term senator of telling Democratic party leaders before informing her own constituents in Arkansas.
"No other senator speaks for Senator Lincoln. She is still reviewing the bill," declared the senator's spokeswoman, Leah Vest DiPietro, adding her boss had not yet made up her mind. For his part, Durbin sought to quickly close the loop with a statement saying he had been unclear and misinterpreted.
As for Nelson, several officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he had insisted Reid omit from the bill any change in the insurance industry's protection from federal antitrust law. The House version of the legislation would expose the industry to scrutiny by both the Justice Department's antitrust lawyers and the Federal Trade Commission.
Reid, who spoke out strongly in favor of the change in antitrust treatment earlier in the fall, left it out of the bill he drafted over several weeks and unveiled on Wednesday.
Lincoln has been the most close-mouthed about her intention. As a committee chairman, she is the most powerful of the group. As the only one of the three seeking re-election next year, she is also the most politically vulnerable.
In public, she has asked that the bill be available for 72 hours before the vote occurs. In private, her demands have been more substantive, according to officials who did not describe them.
She is virtually certain to be criticized no matter what her vote. After the House cleared its version of the legislation this month, a conservative group began airing commercials criticizing Rep. Vic Snyder, D-Ark., for voting in its favor. At the same time, MoveOn.org, a liberal organization, slammed another one of the state's lawmakers, Rep. Mike Ross, for opposing it.
A hint: At home, Lincoln has suggested her vote will be influenced by former President Bill Clinton, who was Arkansas governor for 12 years before winning the White House.
Clinton recently met privately with Senate Democrats, telling them that passing an imperfect bill was better than nothing. "We don't ever go to Washington with the idea that we're going to create a work of art," Lincoln said afterward. "It's got to be a work in progress."
She and the other moderates face pressure from business groups opposed to the legislation. In a statement Friday the Business Roundtable, which represents big company CEOs, said the Senate bill "will not effect the needed changes to measurably improve the American health care system." Democrats and the White House had seized on a report by the same group last week concluding that some of the provisions under consideration by Congress had the potential to tame runaway medical inflation.
Of the three centrists, Landrieu has been the clearest about her intentions, and her interests ranged beyond health insurance to the oysters for which Louisiana is famous. When the Food and Drug Administration proposed banning sales of raw oysters from the Gulf of Mexico during warm weather months, Landrieu and others objected.
A week ago, the agency thought better of the idea and shelved the plan in favor of further study. "I'm really thankful that they listened," said Landrieu, who had met with FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg to discuss the issue.
Over recent weeks, Landrieu has issued a string of statements outlining the areas she wanted addressed for the benefit of her constituents — issues that could be dealt with only after health legislation made it to the Senate floor.
After meeting with Reid almost a month ago, she mentioned the "unique challenges Louisiana is facing in terms of Medicaid."
In a Senate speech and statement, she noted that Louisiana has the highest breast cancer death rate in the country and the lowest female life expectancy of any state. And she said, "Unless something is done, annual health care costs for small firms over the next 10 years are expected to more than double to reach $339 billion in 2018."
Landrieu can point to provisions in the legislation that are designed to attack all three problems.
They include Section 2006.
Reading it is of little assistance. "Special adjustment to FMAP Determination for Certain States recovering from a Major Disaster" is the title, and about two pages of similarly indecipherable legalese follows.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, it will send an additional $100 million to Louisiana to help it cover costs for Medicaid, the federal-state health care program for the poor.
Should Landrieu decide to side with Republicans this weekend, she would also be voting to deny her state those funds.
(© 2010 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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