House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. gives Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich. a hug after he gave his remarks at a news conference, announcing the introduction of health care legislation on Capitol Hill, Tuesday, July 14, 2009, in Washington. Democrats unveiled ambitious legislation to remake the nation's health care system and called on medical providers, businesses and the wealthiest Americans to pick up the tab for President Barack Obama's top domestic priority. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
By Erica Werner, Associated Press Writer
(AP) — Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives are preparing to advance legislation that would deliver on President Barack Obama’s promise to remake the nation’s costly health care system and cover some 50 million uninsured.
On the heels of the Senate health committee’s approval Wednesday of a plan to revamp U.S. health care, three House committees with jurisdiction over the issue were shifting into action.
Votes were planned Thursday in the Education and Labor committee and the Ways and Means committee on a $1.5 trillion plan that majority House Democrats presented this week. The legislation seeks to provide coverage to nearly all Americans by subsidizing the poor and penalizing individuals and employers who don’t purchase health insurance.
A third House committee, Energy and Commerce, also was considering the measure Thursday, but the road was expected to be rougher there. A group of fiscally conservative House Democrats called the Blue Dogs holds more than half-a-dozen seats on the committee — enough to block approval — and is opposing the bill over costs and other issues.
Rep. Mike Ross, a Democrat from Arkansas who chairs the Blue Dogs’ health care task force, said the group would need to see significant changes to protect small businesses and rural providers and contain costs before it could sign on. “We cannot support the current bill,” he said.
The Energy and Commerce Blue Dogs met Wednesday to consider what amendments they would offer, and the panel scheduled vote sessions daily through next Wednesday in what promised to be an arduous process to reach consensus.
Obama was doing all he could to encourage Congress to act. He scheduled White House meetings for Thursday morning with two potential Senate swing votes, Sens. Ben Nelson, a Democrat from Nebraska, and Olympia Snowe, a Republican from Maine. On Wednesday he met with a group of Senate Republicans in the White House in search of a bipartisan compromise and appeared in the Rose Garden for the latest in a daily series of public appeals to Congress to “step up and meet our responsibilities” and move legislation this summer.
Obama also pushed his message in network television interviews, and his political organization launched a series of 30-second television ads on health care.
In an interview on NBC, the president declared “there is no free lunch” and said again that the country cannot afford to postpone dealing with the health care problem.
“I think the best way to fund it is for people like myself who have been very lucky, to pay a little bit more,” he said on CBS.
Wednesday’s Senate health committee vote “should make us hopeful — but it can’t make us complacent,” Obama said. “It should instead provide the urgency for both the House and the Senate to finish their critical work on health reform before the August (congressional) recess.”
The health panel’s $615 billion measure would require individuals to get health insurance and employers to contribute to the cost. The bill calls for the government to provide financial assistance with premiums for individuals and families making up to four times the federal poverty level, or about $88,000 for a family of four, a broad cross-section of the middle class.
But the 13-10 party-line vote on the bill signaled a rift in Congress — including between Democrats. Some liberal-leaning Senate Democrats are eager to move forward with or without Republican support, while some moderates want to hold out for a bipartisan deal.
Sen. Chris Dodd, the Connecticut Democrat who presided over the health committee vote, said it was more important to get a good bill than to get Republican votes.
“There is a value in achieving bipartisanship but I will not sacrifice a good bill for that. That’s not the goal here,” Dodd said, noting that Democrats plus two independents add up to 60 seats in the 100-member Senate — the number needed to advance legislation.
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Associated Press writers Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Ben Feller and Alan Fram contributed to this report.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
