UPDATE: Sen Reid: 'Cautiously Optimistic' On Health-Care Vote
(Updates with details of new proposal by Sen. Thomas Carper.)
By Patrick Yoest
Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.)
said Tuesday that he is confident that he will have the votes to overcome an
initial procedural barrier on health-care legislation, which the Senate is
expected to begin debating this week.
Reid is awaiting a cost estimate of the bill from the nonpartisan
Congressional Budget Office, which he told reporters he would hear from "very
soon." Once he receives the cost estimate and senators review the legislation--
which could take as long as three days--the Senate will hold a test vote that
allows them to formally proceed to the bill.
Reid will need to secure 60 votes in order to avoid a filibuster on that
motion. "I feel cautiously optimistic that we can do that," he said Tuesday.
Reid needs to assuage the concerns of centrists Democrats, who are skeptical
about a public health insurance plan that Reid says is part of his bill.
Even if Reid manages to gather enough votes to move to the bill, he would need
to get the bill over a second 60-vote threshold to close debate on it and
proceed to a final vote. That could prove more difficult, since some centrists,
such as Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I, Conn.) have said they want to see the public
plan removed before that vote is held.
Sen. Thomas Carper (D., Del.) told reporters Tuesday that he is working on an
alternative to the public option that would create a national nonprofit entity
to administer a health insurance plan to states that do not have a low-cost
insurance option available to enough of its residents.
Carper said the Department of Health and Human Services would be involved with
the creation of the proposed nonprofit plan initially, and that the plan would
take effect when state-based exchanges to purchase insurance are to be created
in 2013. The nonprofit entity could receive start-up funding from the federal
government, according to Carper, but "whatever funds would be made available
would ultimately be repaid."
Carper portrayed a compromise on the issue as the only way to bring centrists
on board who "aren't prepared to vote for a national public plan" even if states
could choose to not participate in the plan, as Reid has proposed.
"I think at the end of the day, we may need something along the lines of what
I suggested in order to finish debate on the bill and report the bill out,"
Carper said.
Democrats such as Sens. Ben Nelson (D., Neb.) and Claire McCaskill (D., Mo.)
have said that they want 72 hours to review Reid's bill after it is released.
Reid plans to release the bill once he receives the cost estimate from the
Congressional Budget Office, but if the bill isn't released Tuesday, the initial
procedural vote to move to the bill could be delayed until Saturday or next
week.
When asked if the Senate could vote Saturday, Reid said, "I hope not, but it's
possible."
-By Patrick Yoest, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-862-3554; patrick.yoest@
dowjones.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
11-17-091938ET
Copyright (c) 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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