Obama May Rely On Partisan Vote For Health-care Bill, Aides Say
“Ultimately, this is not about a process, its about results,” David Axelrod, Obamas senior political strategist, said during an interview yesterday in his White House office. “If were going to get this thing done, obviously time is a- wasting.”
Both Axelrod and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said taking a partisan route to enacting major health-care legislation isnt the presidents preferred choice. Yet in separate interviews, each man left that option open.
“Wed like to do it with the votes of members of both parties,” Axelrod said. “But the worst result would be to not get health-care reform done.”
House Democrats yesterday unveiled legislation that would expand health care to millions of Americans over the next decade by raising taxes on the wealthiest households. The Senate has yet to agree on a bill, as Democratic lawmakers struggle to get Republican support.
Emanuel, making a theoretical case for a party-line vote, offered a definition of bipartisanship based not on roll-call votes but on whether Democrats have accepted Republican ideas during the process of negotiations.
He said Democrats already have passed that test, pointing to Republican amendments that the Democratic-controlled Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee has adopted.
Republican Ideas
“Thats a test of bipartisanship — whether you took ideas from both parties,” Emanuel said. “At the end of the day, the test isnt whether they voted for it,” he said, referring to Republicans. “The test is whether the final product represented some of their ideas. And I think it will.”
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said in a statement last night that “Americans want us to work together on proposals that are likely to garner strong bipartisan support — not rush through bills like the stimulus with little scrutiny and predictable results.”
McConnell referred to the Obama-backed economic stimulus bill that was passed into law in February with no Republican support in the House and three Republican votes in the Senate.
Senator Orrin Hatch, a Republican from Utah, said in a statement he was “very disappointed to hear recent reports that the administration may give up on a bipartisan solution to health-care reform.” Health care “is not a Democrat or Republican issue, it is an American issue, but, from the start of this health-care debate, Democrats have shut us completely out the process,” he also said.
Two former Senate majority leaders — Robert Dole, a Republican from Kansas, and Tom Daschle, a Democrat from South Dakota who is a White House adviser on health-care policy — are among those who have inveighed against a partisan approach on such a contentious issue.
During a joint appearance in June as they unveiled their own bipartisan health-care proposal, Dole said he believed Democrats could pass a bill by a party-line vote, even as he expressed disapproval of such a tactic.
“I hope it doesnt come to that,” Dole said. “If theres not a Senate Republican vote for the package, then the American people are going to be very skeptical.
The Democrats have 60 votes in the Senate to 40 for the Republicans, and have a 255-178 advantage in the House, with two vacancies.
Couldnt Agree More
Daschle at the joint appearance said he “couldnt agree more” with Doles warning about the political fallout from a partisan vote.
Moreover, he expressed doubt that Democrats alone could prevail, because that scenario “assumes unanimity” among the partys lawmakers, and that isnt the case.