Will Harry Reid Meet His Christmas Eve Deadline? Dems Infighting

Dem infighting threatening health bill. Can Dems pass Health Care Reform by Christmas Eve?

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Health care deadline obstacles pile up


With the clock ticking down on health care reform, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has until Saturday to strike a 60-vote compromise if Democrats hope to meet a Christmas Eve deadline - but the obstacles kept piling up Thursday.

Reid still had no legislative text and no cost analysis to release. One of the final moderate holdouts, Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), rejected compromise language on abortion funding and said he's doubtful a bill can pass by Christmas. Two powerful unions blasted the bill. House Democrats threatened to undo the Senate bill during a conference committee. And a Democratic war over the bill raged on the Internet and cable news.

The White House sunk deeper into the fight within its own party, working throughout the day to discredit the claims of former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean that the Senate bill is so weak it should be scrapped.

The net effect was the loss of any sense of inevitability surrounding the passage of health care legislation by the end of the year as Reid struggled to keep it on track.

"If we are going to get a bill out of the Senate, which will be very close to getting a bill enacted, we have to do it in 2009," said Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.), who is working on the abortion compromise with Nelson. "Some might not think so, but what I would worry about is losing momentum."

"We're down to 48 to 72 hours," he said at 2 p.m. Thursday.

Reid needs a commitment - privately or publicly - from Nelson and other undecided senators by Saturday night, which is the drop-dead time at which the majority leader must begin the procedural steps necessary to finish the bill by Christmas Eve. The current timeline would have the Senate taking a series of votes: at 1 a.m. Monday, 7 a.m. Tuesday, 1 p.m. Wednesday and 7 p.m. Christmas Eve.

If the Senate fails to break a Republican filibuster early Friday morning on a Department of Defense appropriations bill, the timeline will be set back by a day, potentially pushing the vote to Christmas Day.

But even this schedule depends largely on Nelson, who remains the biggest concern by far for the White House and the Senate Democratic leadership. He has given no indication of which way he will go.

"I don't have a timetable to do that," Nelson told POLITICO of his decision. "We're still working on language, and a number of issues are under consideration right now that I've requested. And we'll have all that information back and see the [Congressional Budget Office] numbers on the package that was sent over a week ago. Then we'll look at everything, and I'll make my decision."

Nelson rejected a compromise from Casey as insufficient in terms of preventing public money from being used on abortions. This was a significant blow to Reid's effort to line up 60 votes because Nelson has said he would filibuster the bill unless the abortion language mirrored what was included in the House bill.

Nelson said his concern with the compromise language was that policyholders would be required to "opt-out" of abortion coverage, and their premiums would subsequently be reduced. By contrast, the language in the House bill requires people to proactively seek abortion coverage, Nelson said.

One reason why Reid continues to wrangle with the Congressional Budget Office over the cost estimate is that he is trying to find ways to accommodate Nelson, according to an official familiar with the negotiations.

Reid spokesman Jim Manley said the majority leader is "not unduly alarmed" by Nelson's concerns with the bill and is "still working to address" them.

At the same time, Democrats worked to protect their left flank. In a reversal of fortune for Obama, progressives attacked the plan moving through the Senate as "hollow," "unsupportable" and a sellout to corporate interests.

The theory has always been that as long as Democrats kept the moderates happy, liberals wouldn't thwart a deal in the end. But for the first time in this lengthy debate, it looked like some of them might. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who favors a government-financed health care system, remains uncommitted on the bill.

The disagreement broke into the light of day Thursday when senior White House adviser David Axelrod slammed Dean, who argued in a Washington Post op-ed that the bill meets none of his benchmarks for "real reform."

"As it stands, this bill would do more harm than good to the future of America," Dean wrote, then took to the airwaves to amplify his case.

Axelrod called in to MSNBC's "Morning Joe" to argue that Dean's criticisms are "predicated on a bunch of erroneous conclusions."

"To defeat a bill that will bend the curve on this inexorable rise in health care costs is insane," Axelrod said. "I think that would be a tragic, tragic outcome. I don't think that you want this moment to pass. It will not come back."

Both the AFL-CIO and the Service Employees International Union released statements Thursday condemning the Senate bill - but stopped short of explicitly opposing it.

While the liberal revolt flared outside the Capitol, progressives in the Senate were showing no sign Thursday of peeling away.

Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), who supported the public option, said she had has "no hesitation voting for this - and I am someone who would vote for a single-payer system."

The one bright spot Thursday for Democrats may have been Sen. Roland Burris (D-Ill.), who backed away from threats to block the health care bill because it lacks a public option.

"We'll see what it is, but what the situation is now is the realization that we can't kill the bill," Burris told POLITICO. "That's the realization."


Sources: Politico, MSNBC