Obama Admin. Pushing Health Care Bill, Wrangling Votes

Nancy DeParle Believes Democrats "Will Have The Votes"


The director of the White House Office of Health Reform said Sunday that she believes Democrats "will have the votes to pass (health care legislation ) in Congress."

"I believe that the president will keep fighting and that the American people want to have this kind of health reform," Nancy-Ann DeParle said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

During the interview, host David Gregory, asked, “But you don’t have the votes yet?”

“Well, look, the president will have more to say about that, later this week, and he’s working with the Congress on how best to address that," DeParle replied.

Pressed on the reconciliation question, she said, “Well, I don’t know about that. But I do know this: that health-care reform has already passed both the House and the Senate with not only a majority in the Senate, but a supermajority. And we’re not talking about changing any rules here. All the president’s talking about is: Do we need to address this problem and does it make sense to have a simple, up-or-down vote on whether or not we want to fix these problems.”

Gregory also challenged the notion that Congress will keep a tax on high-end health care plans the Senate used to pay for the plan if it doesn't go into effect until 2018 or raise other revenue to keep paying for the bill. The "Meet" host asked, “Do you really think Congress down the road is going to [pass a 2018] tax increase that this Congress wasn’t brave enough to pass now?” he asked.

“Yes, I do," DeParle said, "because this president is paying for reform, unlike similar measures in the past, first of all. And secondly, it’s something that over 10 years is going to reduce the deficit. They’re not going to want to walk away from that."






Top Dem: Votes Will Be There



A top vote-counter in the House is confident her party can rally the support to pass the president's health care bill.

"When we start counting, the votes will be there," Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), a top deputy in the Democrats' whip operation, said on NBC's "Meet the Press."








Kent Conrad: Reconciliation Can't Be Used For Comprehensive Reform


Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) threw cold water on the idea of using the Reconciliation process Sunday during an appearance on CBS' "Face the Nation."

"Reconciliation cannot be used to pass comprehensive health care reform," said Conrad, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. "The major package would not be done through reconciliation."

Asked by CBS host Bob Schieffer to elaborate, given that the White House suggested earlier Sunday that they could pass the main bill with a simple majority of 51 votes, Conrad said that reconciliation was not, in fact, an option.

"I am the chairman of the committee in the Senate, and I think I understand how reconciliation works and can't work," he said, arguing that the so-called Byrd Rule would prevent the use of reconciliation for the main health care bill. "The only possible role I can see for reconciliation would be to make modest changes in the major package."

Conrad said only "side car" issues could be affected through the reconciliation process.


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