Pelosi: House Will Not Adopt Senate Bill

By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
NYT

The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi of California, said on Thursday that Democrats remained committed to passing far-reaching health care legislation, but she said that the House would not simply adopt the Senate version of the bill and send it to President Obama in part because of problematic provisions that she said contributed to the Republican victory in the Massachusetts special election on Tuesday.

“We recognize health care has to be done, health care reform must be done,” Ms. Pelosi said at her weekly news conference in the Capitol.

However, she said that party leaders and rank-and-file lawmakers had not decided how to proceed given the opposition to simply passing the Senate bill and the fact that Senate Democrats, as a result of the outcome in Massachusetts, will no longer control the 60 votes needed to surmount a Republican filibuster and approve a revised bill.

“Unease would be a gentle word in terms of the attitude of my colleagues toward certain provisions in the Senate bill,” Ms. Pelosi said.

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