Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Reid, Democrats consider health care reform options after losing supermajority in Senate

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Massachusetts State Sen. Scott Brown, R-Wrentham, waves to supporters after voting in Wrentham, Mass., Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2010.

Harry Reid

Harry Reid

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Emerging from a closed-door meeting of Democratic senators a day after losing his 60-seat majority to a stunning Republican electoral victory in Massachusetts, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid faced questions for which he had no easy answers.

Democrats reached no clear consensus Wednesday on a path forward on their landmark health care bill — or, for that matter, the rest of President Barack Obama’s agenda.

Did the victory by the populist in a pickup truck, Scott Brown, over the establishment-backed Democrat, Martha Coakley, in the race for the late-Sen. Edward Kennedy’s seat mean Reid should press ahead on passing comprehensive health reform and other Obama priorities?

Or did the Republican resurgence in Massachusetts signal Democratic overreach in 2009, suggesting they should pursue a less ambitious agenda and a smaller health care bill?

Democratic Rep. Dina Titus, who with Reid faces a potentially difficult re-election campaign this year, said Democrats should cut their losses, pass a scaled-back version of the health bill and move on to legislation to improve the economy and jobs.

“Maybe we took too big a bite of the apple,” Titus said after her own morning meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other freshman Democrats.

“I sensed from a lot of people of the freshman class we need to regroup and come back with something where we can have bipartisan support — and that would be insurance reform,” she said. “I’m being practical … I think we should just finish this up and move to jobs.”

But others weren’t so ready to move on.

Andy Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union, blamed the Senate for having “squandered” an opportunity and called on Congress to finish health care reform.

“The reason Ted Kennedy’s seat is no longer controlled by a Democrat is clear: Washington’s inability to deliver the change voters demanded in November 2008,” Stern said in a terse statement following Tuesday’s vote. “This is not the time for timidity.”

Reid just last month was celebrated by Democrats for having accomplished what seemed impossible — passing health care in the Senate in a dramatic Christmas Eve vote, pushing health care legislation further than any other attempt in 60 years.

But as Reid returned Wednesday to the Senate for the first time since that historic vote, he again faced a critical test of leadership that could weigh heavily on his party’s electoral chances. The decisions Reid, Obama and other Democratic leaders make now will have deep ramifications for the November election — setting the party on a political trajectory that will make the difference between voter approval and revolt.

Trying to lighten the mood on an otherwise dour day for Democrats, Reid emerged from the closed-door luncheon with fellow senators, saying: “I feel like I never left.”

By day’s end it looked like Democrats might abandon the comprehensive health care bill that would not likely pass in the Senate with the new math.

With Brown becoming the 41st Senate Republican, the minority party has enough opponents to block the health care legislation and other bills with a filibuster.

Democrats now have 59 votes, but 60 are needed to overcome the opposition.

One plan circulating would have the House pass the Senate bill on the promise that changes would be made later to provisions they dislike.

Sen. Richard Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, acknowledged that asking the House to make such a move would be a “bitter pill” — even as he hoped they would consider doing so.

But House members, including Titus, balked at the proposal, countering that it would be better to pass a scaled-back bill with the insurance industry reforms that are popular with voters.

Dina Titus

Dina Titus

“I cannot support the Senate bill,” Titus said. “The public doesn’t want to see any tricky maneuvering … I want to see us do something good — reforming the insurance industry is something good.”

Gone would be the chance to provide insurance for the 31 million uninsured Americans, including nearly 500,000 in Nevada, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s statehealthfacts.org.

Instead, a scaled-back bill would focus on insurance reform provisions — prohibiting companies from denying patients with pre-existing conditions, the lifting of lifetime financial caps on health care, requiring that a portion of insurance industry profits are funneled back into care, and allowing young adults to remain on their parents’ insurance plans until they are 26 or 27.

By evening, Obama was telling ABC News that a scaled-back bill might be the better way to go.

Democrats have taken one clear message home from Massachusetts: The economy, not health care, is on voters’ minds.

“The problems out there are certainly more than health care,” Reid said. “People all over this country are concerned about their jobs — keeping their jobs, finding their jobs. People have lost their homes. People are concerned about the upside-down value of their homes … Health care is a problem, but it’s certainly more than that.”

A populist agenda of jobs and the economy will appeal to voters in Nevada, where the unemployment rate is among the highest and, if gathered, the jobless would form one of the state’s most populous cities.

No doubt Reid’s own re-election campaign could be enhanced by a message of economic populism, especially as his Republican challengers criticize him for not doing enough as Senate leader to help ordinary Nevadans.

But abandoning health care reform, or passing a significantly scaled-back bill could hurt Reid in the state where he has tied his fortunes to Obama’s signature domestic policy priority.

David Damore, a political science professor at UNLV, said abandoning health care could deprive Reid of an opportunity to showcase his leadership “and all the goodies for Nevada.”

“They have way too much sunk into this to walk away with nothing,” Damore said.

Polling from Massachusetts showed voter discontent was rooted as much in impatience over Obama’s agenda not coming to fruition as displeasure with the direction Democrats were taking.

A poll by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee showed that 57 percent of Brown voters said Obama was “not delivering enough” on the change he promised.

Now, as Obama begins his second year in office, Reid is one vote shy of what is needed to overcome unified Republican opposition to the president’s agenda.

One outcome is certain from Tuesday night’s results in Massachusetts: Reid’s job just got harder.

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