House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) still sees a slight chance that the Democratic-controlled Congress can wrap up work on a landmark health care bill by Christmas - all while insisting the House wants a full say in the final version.
"We would do almost anything if it meant we would pass health care for all Americans (by) the Christmas holidays," Pelosi told reporters Thursday. "Maybe we can't," she said, in which case Congress could deliver "a New Year's present for the American people."
But "anything" doesn't mean she's willing to just accept the Senate bill.
"We would like to see a full conference" negotiation with the Senate, the speaker said, meaning she wants to appoint House negotiators to hash out a final version with their Senate counterparts before scheduling a vote on the combined package.
Conference negotiations can sometimes take months, but the speaker suggested Thursday that negotiators could wrap up these health care talks over a single weekend if the Senate finishes its bill by the end of next week.
That's an incredibly abbreviated timeline, given the amount of work both chambers have put into the negotiations over their respective bills. But it may suggest the speaker is willing to accept much of what the Senate produces.
Without commenting directly on the tentative Senate deal, Pelosi told reporters, "There's certainly a great deal of appeal about putting people 55 and older on Medicare" - one plank of the pending compromise to gut a controversial public option.
"These bills are perhaps 75 percent compatible," she said.
source: http://www.politico.com/livepulse/1209/Pelosi_wants_health_care_for_Christmas.html
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December 07, 2009
Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) upped the rhetorical ante this morning by comparing opponents of health care reform to conservatives who tried to block emancipation and equal rights -- prompting the head of the RNC to question his sanity.
Reid, speaking on the floor of the Senate today, blasted GOP leaders who have urged Democrats opt for a slower, incremental approach to reform instead of the mega-bill the majority hopes to push through the Senate by Christmas
Reid started by mimicking Republicans whom he claims have said: "'Slow down, stop everything, let's start over."
"You think you've heard these same excuses before? You're right," he continued. "In this country there were those who dug in their heels and said, 'Slow down, it's too early. Let's wait. Things aren't bad enough' -- about slavery. When women wanted to vote [they said] 'Slow down, there will be a better day to do that -- the day isn't quite right...'"
He finished with: "When this body was on the verge of guaranteeing equal civil rights to everyone regardless of the color of their skin, some senators resorted to the same filibuster threats that we hear today."
Reaction was swift. Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, who is black, questioned Reid's state of mind -- and demanded an apology.
“Harry Reid is under immense pressure to pass this 2,000 page experiment on our nation’s health – an experiment that creates a new $1 trillion dollar federal entitlement program by cutting $500 billion from Medicare, all at a time when our country is in miserable debt and facing an extreme job crisis.
The pressure has apparently led Senator Reid not only to make offensive and absurd statements, but also to lose his ability to reason... Having made this disgraceful statement on the floor of the United States Senate, Mr. Reid should immediately apologize on the Senate floor to his colleagues, to his constituents, and to the American people. If he is going to stand by these statements, the Democrats must immediately reconsider his fitness to lead them.”
Senate Republicans were also furious, reported POLITICO's Meredith Shiner, who went to their Q-and-A Monday.
"They are so desperate that it is unbelievable. And for Senator Reid to go out this morning and make such an outlandish statement like he made, just is another indication of the desperation that the Democrats are showing and the pressure that they're feeling," said Sen. Saxby Chambliss (GA).
Said Sen. Tom Coburn (Okla.). "I think it's beneath the dignity of the majority leader, for one. I think it's beneath the dignity of the Senate...to make any kind of outlandish claim similar to what was made on the Senate floor this morning, and I personally am insulted by the Majority Leader."
Reid's office wasn't apologizing -- referring to the GOP's "feigned outrage" and a "ploy" to distract voters from the lack of Republican alternative.
"It is hard to believe Senate Republicans are making these charges with a straight face," said Reid spokesman Jim Manley. "For the past eight days they¹ve done nothing but obstruct health care on the Senate floor and throughout this year have played politics with this and virtually every other issue of importance to the American people.
Did Reid go too far?
It's an old debate -- 40 years old, to be precise.
Martin Luther King drew similar criticism - equating social reform with racial justice -- when he tried to expand the civil rights movement into a broader call for economic justice during his Poor Peoples Campaign and his final trip to Memphis in support of the sanitation strike.
See the rest of the story at http://www.politico.com/blogs/glennthrush/1209/Reid_compares_health_care_foes_to_slavery_supporters.html
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The 2009 AFL-CIO Convention just got a message from the top leaders in Congress: We stand with you and with America’s workers.On behalf of the Congress, I thank all of you for your leadership for America’s working families.
Today, you are organizing, marching, and leading the charge in the fight of our lives, to provide affordable, quality and accessible health care to everyone, and we will win.Reid said that, thanks to the hard work of union members around the country, we’re making real progress to fixing an economy that was leaving too many behind:
Thank you to the AFL-CIO, for your commitment to progress and prosperity. Onward to victory.
We demanded a new direction for our country. Together we stood up…we knew the challenges we faced were not created in a day, and we knew they would not be fixed overnight. We also knew we had no time to waste.Reid pointed to successes in creating jobs, in helping children get health care and helping students go to college. He also said he wants to swiftly pass the Employee Free Choice Act.
We’ve made a good start, but we have so much more to do.
I’m as committed today as ever to passing the Employee Free Choice Act and making it law.It’s a sign of the changes the union movement has helped to make in this country that the top leaders in Congress are so enthusiastic to offer thanks to union members at this Convention.
