Filed by KOSU News in Politics.
November 18, 2009

The political stakes enormous, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid briefed crucial moderate Democrats before unveiling long-awaited legislation Wednesday to remake the nation’s health care system.

Revealing the bill’s details signals the beginning of an intense struggle on the Senate floor, where Republicans have vowed to block the legislation atop President Obama’s domestic agenda.

Officials have said the legislation would require most Americans to carry health insurance and would mandate large companies to provide coverage to their workers, as well as ban insurance company practices such as denying coverage on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions.

Reid hopes to bring the bill — ostensibly a combination of the bills approved by two different Senate committees earlier this year — to the full Senate to begin debate as early as this weekend.

He’s fighting not only the calendar — Republicans have vowed to prolong debate for at least several weeks, probably pushing a final vote right up to the Christmas holidays — but also his own caucus. Reid needs the votes of every one of his 58 Democrats, plus independents Joe Lieberman and Bernie Sanders, to stave off delaying tactics. So far getting everyone on board, particularly moderates like Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, has been no easy task.

To entice some of the fence-sitters, Reid has reportedly items to the bill that were not included in either of the committee products. To satisfy liberals, he will include in the basic bill a so-called “public option” that would let individuals who don’t get insurance on the job and small businesses choose a government-sponsored plan as one option in the new insurance “exchanges” the bill will create. To satisfy moderates, states would be able to opt out of offering the public option if they want to.

Meanwhile, Republicans remain united in their opposition. Maine’s Olympia Snowe, who voted for the Finance Committee bill, says she is opposed to any version of a public option. Oklahoma’s Tom Coburn has gone so far as to threaten to require the entire bill be read aloud.

Reid, D-Nev., summoned members of the Democratic rank and file to a late-afternoon closed-door caucus to show the bill he has spent weeks writing and rewriting.

He met in advance with Nelson, Landrieu and Lincoln and was “walking through the particulars with them,” said Reid’s spokesman, Jim Manley.

None of the 40 Republicans is expected to defect on the first test vote for the bill, expected by weekend. Ahead lie weeks - if not more - of unpredictable maneuvering on the Senate floor, where Reid and his allies will seek to incorporate changes sought by Democrats and repel attempts by Republicans to defeat the legislation and inflict a significant political defeat on the president.

Reid was releasing his legislation more than a week after the House approved its version of the health care bill on a near party-line vote of 220-215.

According to estimates from the Congressional Budget Office, that House bill, with a price tag of about $1.2 trillion, would result in coverage for tens of millions of uninsured, and provide 96 percent of the eligible population with insurance.

Reid has said he was seeking a less costly measure, but it was not clear whether he would meet or slightly exceed Obama’s target of roughly $900 billion over a decade.

Two Senate committees approved different versions of a health care bill earlier in the year, and while Reid has said he would produce a blend of the two proposals, in fact he had a virtual free hand to come up with a plan that could command the 60 votes needed to pass.

Anticipating a major struggle, the White House deputized Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle to join Vice President Joe Biden in trying to clear the way for the bill’s approval over the next several weeks.

Salazar, a former Colorado senator, is viewed as a bridge to moderate Democrats who are far outnumbered by liberals inside the Democratic caucus.

Daschle was Obama’s first choice for secretary of health and human services, a position from which he was to try and oversee the administration’s drive to enact health care legislation. He withdrew his nomination when it was disclosed he had not paid more than $120,000 in federal taxes over several years.

From NPR and wire service reports. Copyright 2009 National Public Radio