Obama seeks to quell healthcare revolt
By Edward Luce in Washington
Published: September 3 2009 19:18 | Last updated: September 4 2009 01:13
Barack Obama faces a steep challenge in his address to the joint houses of Congress next Wednesday to get his healthcare reforms back on track without provoking revolt from the Democratic party’s moderate or liberal wings, say lawmakers.
The US president, who has seen sharply declining public support for healthcare reform and falling personal approval ratings, will set out his plans in “understandable, clear terms”, Joe Biden, the vice-president, said on Thursday.
But Democratic lawmakers on Thursday made clear that there were still unbridgeable differences between the party’s centrist and progressive wings. In August a group of 60 Democratic lawmakers wrote to Mr Obama to say they would vote against a healthcare bill that excluded the public insurance option on which he had campaigned.
But centrist Democratic senators, including Ben Nelson and Evan Bayh, whose support will be essential, continued to say they would vote against a bill with a public option.
“I see two endings,” Mr Nelson told the Journal Star newspaper on Thursday. “One is we find areas we can agree upon and begin to do things incrementally taking more of an insurance approach, not a government approach. The other is that it [the bill] implodes.”
Meanwhile, Jan Schakowsky, a leading progressive Democratic lawmaker, said liberals were not prepared to climb down. “I will support nothing short of a robust public health insurance plan upon implementation – no triggers,” she said. “I believe Congress will pass and the president will sign such a bill.”
The dismissive reference to “triggers” would augur badly for plans to woo Olympia Snowe, the Republican senator for Maine, who has signalled that inclusion of a public option trigger would be enough to secure her support.
A public option trigger would specify that a public insurance plan could be created several years on if private insurers failed to meet the conditions of the reforms. Rahm Emanuel, Mr Obama’s chief of staff, and Ms Snowe were said to be “deep in conversations” on Thursday about the possible compromise.
The flurry of divergent comments by lawmakers makes it clear how difficult it will be for Mr Obama to bring his party together. “The more specific the president is on what he supports for healthcare reform, the more people he will alienate – so he’s damned if he does,” says Jim Morone, whose book, The Heart of Power: Healthcare and Politics in the Oval Office, is out this month.
The White House indicated on Thursday that the president had yet to decide on the contents of his address. But senior administration officials made clear he is thinking of junking the public option and would agree a scaled-back reform package, in order to get something passed.
The stakes for Mr Obama are high. Opinion polls show most Americans see the state of the economy as their main concern – with worries about jobs and rising fiscal deficits. Healthcare does not register high on their list of concerns.
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The fissures within the Democratic party are widening. It will be interesting to see what happens.
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