GOP Launches Strategy to Trip Up Health Bill
Oct. 19, 2009
By David M. Drucker
Roll Call Staff
Correction Appended
Senate Republicans, acknowledging they lack the votes to block a health care reform bill outright, have implemented a comprehensive political strategy to delay, define and derail.
With Democratic leaders and White House officials holed up in Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) office negotiating a final bill, Republicans are demanding a deceleration of the process and moving to define whatever plan that emerges as a combination of Medicare cuts, tax increases, higher insurance premiums and rising overall costs.
“Where they’re headed is inconsistent with the American people, so I’m not sure it’s as much about us as it is about making sure that the American people express their deep concerns over this,” Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) said last week. “Certainly they’ve got the votes, but they’re going to have to hold every one of them in the United States Senate to make it through this.”
Senate Democrats are rejecting Republicans’ demands to slow things down, charging that the GOP isn’t interested in working with the majority to craft a bipartisan health care bill. Rather, Reid said repeatedly last week, the Republicans’ primary goal is to sink reform in order to undercut President Barack Obama.
Negotiations on a final Senate bill are set to resume today with Reid, Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and senior White House officials. Republicans have not been invited to participate in the talks, although Reid said Thursday that he has reached out to a few GOP Senators and is likely to consult moderate Sen. Olympia Snowe (Maine). Snowe was the lone Republican last week to support the Senate Finance Committee’s version of a health care overhaul.
(More here.)
By David M. Drucker
Roll Call Staff
Correction Appended
Senate Republicans, acknowledging they lack the votes to block a health care reform bill outright, have implemented a comprehensive political strategy to delay, define and derail.
With Democratic leaders and White House officials holed up in Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) office negotiating a final bill, Republicans are demanding a deceleration of the process and moving to define whatever plan that emerges as a combination of Medicare cuts, tax increases, higher insurance premiums and rising overall costs.
“Where they’re headed is inconsistent with the American people, so I’m not sure it’s as much about us as it is about making sure that the American people express their deep concerns over this,” Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) said last week. “Certainly they’ve got the votes, but they’re going to have to hold every one of them in the United States Senate to make it through this.”
Senate Democrats are rejecting Republicans’ demands to slow things down, charging that the GOP isn’t interested in working with the majority to craft a bipartisan health care bill. Rather, Reid said repeatedly last week, the Republicans’ primary goal is to sink reform in order to undercut President Barack Obama.
Negotiations on a final Senate bill are set to resume today with Reid, Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and senior White House officials. Republicans have not been invited to participate in the talks, although Reid said Thursday that he has reached out to a few GOP Senators and is likely to consult moderate Sen. Olympia Snowe (Maine). Snowe was the lone Republican last week to support the Senate Finance Committee’s version of a health care overhaul.
(More here.)
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